My thoughts on the wonderful "IM"

Instant coffee. Instant gratification. Instant food preparation. Instant this and instant that. We live in an instant society. To quote a song, "We want it all and we want it now." The world is quickly becoming a fast-food, fast-paced dreamworld where everything is expected to work at the speed of an electromagnetic wave. (F.Y.I., my physics teacher this past year informed me that light is one such wave and it moves at the speed of - 3.0 X 10^8 m/s - which is, well, rather fast.)

So along with everything else instant is the..TADA, WALA - the instant messenger. I always liked the instant food stuff, albeit unhealthy...but for some reason it took me a while to finally do the instant messenger thing. I mean, e-mails were person-specific, message boards were more reflective ... who needed this IM thing, I thought.

People bugged me at school: "Josh man, get AOL messenger. It's free." It's almost like a dentist trying to sell you a dental check-up. I was expecting them to say, "It's painless, too." Well, maybe not...

But I always would say, "Okaay, okaaaaaaaay." And I never would "get around to it."

Then I joined a message board. And someone kept bugging me to download MSN messenger. I was forever 'about to get around to it,' till finally I got worn out by the constant nagging.

Well, if she ever reads this, Shasha: I thank you for your nagging.

I now have MSN 6.1 and it's - well, rather nice.

I mean, you can acquire as small or as large a list of "buddies" as you want. And whenever they're online you can just go ahead and chat with them live. Seems cool enough. Seems high-tech enough.

And I will admit, it's rather fun. It's neat meeting new people and not having to utter anything intelligible to belong...

Wait a minute, did you just catch that?

Yes, I have a couple of problems with this "instant messenger" thing.

a) It's a problem I have with "internet communication." Internet dating, internet emails, internet chatting ... et-cetera et-cetera et-cetera. But what kind of a society are we becoming? Apparently one in which verbal communication is less popular and cyberchat is - well, "in." You have the feeling that you're meeting this new person "Suzy", when really as you hammer away at the keys of your keypad - you're really, merely, unforunately - only communicating, in essence, with an IDEA. For all you know, this could be the matrix...just kidding. But really, what is the person you're "chatting" with really like? If you met him/her in real life, could you even remain in the same room without cursing each other out? Instant messages give you this sense of importance/urgency in really meeting new people when really - you're just talking with an idea. Just as is the case with me typing this right now - I've just publishing this post to empty cyberspace - no one may ever read it. Wow. Esoteric, man.

b) Instant messenger is rather *mindless. You're sitting there saying things like, "yo," "lol," ROFlol," "brb," "ok," "haha," "hehe," "ya," "no," "cool," "imho," and other cheesy little abbreviations that are really desensitizing when it comes to cranial activity. And I don't know about you, but when I get the urge to "talk" to someone and send them a little IM - I don't end up talking about the deeper things in life. I usually come out feeling that both of us are dumber than I thought humans are supposed to be. It's always cheesy little, "how's the weather," "what's your age/sex/location," "what are your hobbies," "hope life's treating you well," and "hey, this was great, let's chat again soon" thing --- and this same process is repeated *over and *over and *over again - with hundreds of other often nameless, faceless cyber identities that we take for granted are actually - people - on the other end of the phone line.

c) Last but not least: oh my. The slaughter of the English language. Sure, a "hey dude" or "wuzzup" is sweet when you're hanging out with friends and using VERBAL communication. But has our society become so dumbed down that when we go behind the modern pen of humanity - the electronic typewriter - we babble meaningless internet jargon like "lol" and "imho" every other second? I mean, just look at all the misspellings that occur with instant messages and chat. We're so intrigued that we're talking with someone (I know I was/am) on the other side of the world - that we let our fingers run faster than our brains can move - and we inevitably type stuff that doesn't make sense. And most of the time we just reply to the other person with an impersonal "LOL". I felt so stupid the first time I asked someone what "LOL" stood for...but you know what...it's rather a strange idea, reducing God's gift of language to a series of catchy phrases and capital letters. Frightening even - that the way we speak in slang - is now subconsciously taking over our written communication now...

...notably in the little mindless escape known as...

...instant messenger.

Now that I've torn IM's apart, let me say they are fun, though mindless: and mindless is good sometimes.

I'm just looking at a society where we seem to be having less and less intelligent recreation forms.

And look at my profile - I'm 17 years old. I'm not an old grandpa just griping with nothing better to do. I'm just thinking about what's happening to the brains of US - my generation.