Instant Messaging: Great communication tool, or senseless waster of time?

wolf · 04-27-2004, 01:20 PM

IM is neither good nor bad, but using makes it so ...

Depends on how you use it.

It is absolutely an amazingly inefficient time waster (or should that be efficient time waster, as it does it so well).

However, since it's free and easy to use, it also has a lot of advantages over more traditional means of communication ... if either your participants type really fast, or you have a setup with either audio or webcam (for the most part the audio is more useful for transmitting information, unless the information you wish to transmit involves pudenda).

More often than not, like most things on the internet, it's an interesting curiosity, which occasional real usefulness.

04-27-2004, 01:20 PM	#1
wolf lobber of scimitars Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Phila Burbs Posts: 20,774	IM is neither good nor bad, but using makes it so ... Depends on how you use it. It is absolutely an amazingly inefficient time waster (or should that be efficient time waster, as it does it so well). However, since it's free and easy to use, it also has a lot of advantages over more traditional means of communication ... if either your participants type really fast, or you have a setup with either audio or webcam (for the most part the audio is more useful for transmitting information, unless the information you wish to transmit involves pudenda). More often than not, like most things on the internet, it's an interesting curiosity, which occasional real usefulness. __________________ wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis

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