After Microsoft and Yahoo messaging services joined forces earlier this month to compete with America Online’s popular AIM, Boston University students call the instant messaging phenomenon a leading communication mode relied on heavily by the college-age generation.
Twenty years ago, when the internet was in its infancy and the PC had yet to enter nearly every household in the country, people communicated in person, via telephone or by mail.
Modern-day technology has added cell phones, email and instant messaging to the list of ways to keep in touch.
Psychology professor emeritus Jean Berko Gleason said while instant messaging is fairly new, it is not as revolutionary as some people say it is.
“It is a new genre in the sense that it has distinct conventions and requirements,” she said. “In order to IM successfully, you need to be able to process information quickly and respond quickly and succinctly, often using typical abbreviations or even graphics.”
With the proliferation of personal computers and the increased popularity of the internet, students say young people are growing up utilizing these new technologies for school, entertainment and communication.
College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Eric Silver said he uses AIM frequently.
“I do a good deal of communication on AIM because it’s cheaper than calling people,” he said.
But Silver said he knows people who have “an AIM addiction,” but said it has not affected his work to a great degree.
AOL’s instant messaging client, AIM, claims to have 40 million active users in the United States.
Count College of General Studies freshman Victoria Yen among those millions of users.
“It’s a really big part of my life,” she said. “As far as getting in touch with people, I think it’s a lot easier than calling, especially since you’re online.”
Berko Gleason compared the concern surrounding the impact instant messenger has on young peoples’ lives to the concern felt when the telephone was first introduced.
“Our lives have changed immensely in the past few years now that almost everyone has a computer, cell phone and land line,” she said. “All of these things can be used to enhance human communication, allowing people to stay in touch.”
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences sophomore Jessica Flanagan said she is on AIM “all day.”
“It has replaced the phone a lot,” she said. “I find that if I have a quick question, I don’t call, I just IM.
“I guess in some ways it makes communication easier if you just need to ask something quickly,” she continued. “But it can be a bad thing if people are just sitting on it all day.”
While Gleason said instant communication has its benefits, she fears AIM distracts from students’ academic work.
“Email, cell phone calls, instant messages can all be very positive tools,” she said. “They can also be abused, overused and used in harmful ways. Students who do this while sitting in class are probably not as good at multitasking as they think and are diluting their experience.”
Yen said instant messaging does not interfere with her work, but said it can have adverse effects on interactions with other people.
“I think it kinda hinders just because you don’t get the personal feeling you would on the phone,” she said. “And you can’t really tell what the other person is feeling.”
Gleason said the impersonal feel of instant messaging is not having a major effect on people’s inhibitions.
“It probably makes a big difference if people who are IM-ing are friends or if the interchange is between relative strangers,” she said. “But this really depends on the individual – some people might, for instance, open up with strangers much the way they do with the stranger who sits next to them on a long flight.”