The Week Long No Instant Messenger Experiment – Results
Revisions:
9-11-10: Initial release.
First of all, I want to take some time out and say that at the time of this post, this was made on September 11th. My heart and prayers goes out to all those who risked their lives to save our country, and I wish those families and friends the best.
So this past week I vowed to myself no IM. No instant messenger starting on Labor day, and all through the week through today, Saturday. What did I experience? How did it feel? What did I witness? Now its time for you to find out.
The first thing that was clearly evident was that the amount of random distractions decreased to zero. It was weird, I had newfound time and freedom. I could work on a blog post, or read something online, or work on a new tutorial concept, and I didn’t have a random Skype IM come up trying to get my attention.
Furthermore, it was no surprise I was able to rest easier, and get some rest. No longer did I have some random IM that might push me to midnight. I could actually do stuff that I wanted to do. No commitments to anyone but myself.
However, some people still needed to contact me. I got more emails this week alone than maybe the last 2 months combined! What is even more interesting about that is that the emails turned out to be straight to the point, and very succinct. There is no time for people to ramble, unless instant messengers when they can easily turn into tangent conversations. *groans*
Of course, my answers were straight to the point too, and if the email is left open from the respondent, I do not even bother to respond because email has a person. It is a way to send a message to someone where it does not require instant reply, and it can be viewed at any time. With instant messenging, once you send a message to the other participant, you are almost beckoning for an answer right now in real-time. To disregard the IM is not only rude, it can be downright disrespectful.
What will be the result of this experiment? Will I go back to my normal IM routine, or will I now consider taking more breaks? Too early to tell, but maybe a hybrid of sorts. We shall see.
Tomorrow I will go back onto Skype. Not sure what to expect. I know for a fact I will have lots of offline messages. Let’s see how many I get.
How about you? Do you use email, but prefer to use IM instead? Or maybe it is the other way around? Tell us about it!
Posted on September 11, 2010, in News and tagged e-mail, Instant Messenger. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
Welcome to the Underground. 
wow, ok.. i have around a loot of emails.. in over 12= years of my life online i have created over a dozen emails..
to be specific, 12 emails.. maybe 1 or 2 more but i cant remem them or must have lost password to it for sure.
the last time i checked my mails??
2 months 3 months..?? i recently created an official email.. for work purposes
(actually to have it on my resume so as to sound professional, my dad said mustang will not be seen as serious 😦 ouch! )
and fumy thing is i havent even checked that up in 2 months too!! Just too lazy!!
the only mails i am cheeking are now the vst ones.. and that too because i managed to have them put up on my igoogle gadget so every time i open my browser i see my mail, plus there is a cool extension on chrome.. it dings a small dinner bell ring whenever an email is received.
did that just sound awkward?!!?!!! haha.. so yeah i use ims alot.. and for every email there is an im account too.. that makes it a lot worse.. i wished i cud prune them all.. but still thanks to u, i managed to have a better fix
Imo.com now its all hassle free ims for me.
Welcome back to the crazy world of im!!
i’ve barely gone on aim/skype/gtalk at college now. mostly its all via email or facebook messages if I need to contact someone. If they are around here, I call them or go find them in person.
results? much faster to finish homework. in some cases, I can actually focus more. I feel like there’s more free time to be busy rather than free time to talk to people.
Also, it helps to be able to cut off a conversation, to be able to say “i have to really go, if you need something just call or email me” and actually walk away. I finally learned that last year and the result? much more needed sleep!
Man I was like 7 when that day happened. I didn’t even know what was going on back then until i got older. Prayers go out to all affected families.
For me, its Email for more formal stuff, IM more for casual convos. It’s probably different than you since you have a formal job and stuff so yea…
Seems like you achieved a lot over this week versatile, GRATS.
-Nick
The only reason i use IMs is to stay in touch with my family. But considering that you don’t really have a purpose that benefits you, i think if i were you i would certainly not get online on any sort of IMs. Maybe once in a week?
Not sure, but that’s just my views. Just like the previous post you did on IMs… “You control it, not the other way” lol