Talk the IM talk, walk the IM walk

BRB, LOL and OMG mean nothing to many people. But to many University students, these acronyms are just part of the new culture created by instant messaging over the Internet.

Aaron Ellerbee '04 said that he checks other people's online away messages "constantly." He began using AOL Instant Messenger when he came to college, and he now leaves it on virtually all the time.

Programs like AIM act as a combination of telephone and email, allowing students to have multiple real-time conversations using their computers.

Ellerbee even takes the time to keep his profile fresh.

"I actually started putting up a poem of the week. I update it every Sunday," Ellerbee said. "I've been doing it since the beginning of the year."

"Verity / to speak of mine / to tell the truth / where's my mind?" Ellerbee asks rhetorically in this week's poem.

He said he wrote the poem after the end of a relationship.

"For a while I tried to work harder at it in hopes that my hard work would make everything better. Really, though, I was just scared to admit this was the case," he said, explaining the poem's inspiration.

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Now online for others to read, writing the poem "was the first time that I was honest enough with myself to allow myself to really think it, to put it down on paper," he said.

Michen Tah '05 said she also spends time working on her profile and away messages. In addition, she uses what some people call "AIM-speak" — a way to abbreviate commonly used expressions to communicate more quickly through IMs.

For example, "be right back" is often written as "brb," and "laughing out loud" is written as "lol." "I am so all about 'AIM-speak,' " Tah said in an email. "I learned a new one this week — idk — I don't know. I also find that I use lots of contractions . . . I am also very versed on smileys."

James Schrader '06 wrote a term paper on IMs for his freshman seminar, FRS 129: Sex, Money, and Rock and Roll: Information Technology and Society, last fall. Schrader surveyed more than one hundred University students, primarily freshmen living in Wilson College, and found nearly all of the students used an instant messaging program, and these students spent roughly 14 hours per day connected to the program.

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Schrader said he found IMing to be a pervasive part of student life.

"It's become a real communications tool that should be taken seriously," Schrader said. "It's just basically being integrated into more and more things."

Schrader noted that cell phones can now be used to send text messages, and many corporations are now using IM programs.

Students use the program extensively, but they recognize both its positive and negative attributes.

Positively, it often increases students' connections to their friends both at the University and at other schools.

"It's really easy for my friends in Minnesota and California, instead of having to make long distance calls, just to send an IM," Ben Rosenberg '05 said. "It's an effortless way to communicate with people."

Courtney Crane-Sherman '06 said she uses AIM to talk to her boyfriend at Northwestern University. It allows her to keep those who might want to contact her up to date on her location on campus.

"It's kind of how I let people know what I'm up to and leave them a way to get a hold of me," she said in an email.

Many students use the program as an answering machine to keep messages while they are away from their rooms.

"IM is like having your own private receptionist handling all your messages at all hours of the day," Azalea Kim '05 said in an email.

"As opposed to phone and email, IM is more efficient," she continued. "You can have the efficiency and productivity of a direct conversation on the phone without relying on individuals setting up a time to be in touch."

Dan Oberst, director of enterprise infrastructure services in OIT, said many University students also use AIM to talk with their parents.

"The other thing that's interesting is that the number of students who IM with their parents is quite large," Oberst said. "Kids go to college and they're actually much more in touch with their parents than they used to be."

Yet, IMs are not without disadvantages. Ryan McDonald '05 said he has consciously chosen not to communicate with IMs.

"Through IM, people try to replicate conversations," McDonald said. "But, it's such a poor replacement for real conversation. It's part of a social trend where we use computers as mediums to deal with issues we would prefer not to deal with in person."

McDonald added that he felt the constant use of away messages creates a dependency.

"IM plays into people who need constant interaction, reinforcement and social support," he said.

Many students agree that using IMs causes them to lose their inhibitions in speaking with others. Schrader said this can allow friends to grow closer, but it can also leave people vulnerable.

Another problem encountered by students is the constant distraction provided by IM. Rosenberg said he often talks on AIM while doing homework.

"You'll be working, but you'll also be doing IM," he said. "It's not exclusive of other activities."

Oberst said that he thinks, in the future, the basic Instant Messenger idea of facilitating quick communication with people will be expanded in many ways.

He said eventually stores and restaurants may offer services to alert mobile IM users when their IM buddies are nearby. Then, the store may offer a discount if the two arrive at the location within a set amount of time.

"I think the whole notion of being able to quickly communicate with people will come up in different guises," he said.

Computer Science Professor David Dobkin said he, too, believes the technology will continue to evolve.

"Twenty-five years ago, I was introduced to email," Dobkin said in an email. "At the time, few people used it. Now it's an important part of all of our lives."

Dobkin said IMs will be the same way.

"Its existence hasn't reduced the volume of email. As IM evolves, we may have to decide if the new medium is still IM or deserves a new name, but the goal will be the same."

While IMs will likely continue to be popular, University students may stop using it once they leave college.

Sociology Professor Paul DiMaggio said that while many kids become IM users by age 8 or 9, they often do not stick with it beyond their early 20s.

"Its popularity is a function of a setting where people have the core of their friends network concentrated in one place," he said. "You have one set of friends from high school who then go somewhere else and a new set of friends you acquire at Princeton. My experience is that . . . the greater the differentiation of one's friends, the less appropriate Instant Messenger will be."