NM3225 Technoculture on Instant Messaging

"O.C.A." can best be defined as people who consistently find themselves chatting with 12 different people at once until 3 a.m.

oday over 42 million people are actively using AOL instant messenger or (AIM) with more than 1.6 billion messages sent daily. This cultural obsession has changed the way people - especially college students - communicate with one another. No longer are students exchanging phone numbers, they are sharing screen names. According to a survey done by aim.com/survey, 70 percent of all people on the Internet use AIM, with 90 percent of 13-21 year olds logging on each day.

INSTANT messaging has come of age. No longer the province of chatty teenagers, it is now part and parcel of advanced communications networks at many corporations.

I almost never get e-mail from my Sun colleagues

Now a generation of office workers who grew up with instant messaging has gained control. They have made I.M. the new black, the latest trend in information technology. Along the way, they have changed how the corporate world converses and have built a series of new communication applications.

Sales and marketing professionals use IM to make swifter decisions, close the deal and generally talk among themselves in strategic back-channel conversations during conference calls and sales presentations.

"IM is actually like live e-mail

He says IM is more effective than e-mail for critical-action items like getting approval on a press release.

IM conversations are brief, (b) that media switching is prevalent, and (c) that multitasking is common

IM is that conversations are brief, addressing a single purpose. They focus on rapid exchanges (e.g. questions and answers) and brief interactions to coordinate conversations in other media (e.g. scheduling impromptu phone or FTF meetings).

media switching is prevalent [3, 14]. Two main reasons for media switching are cited. First, the conversation becomes too complex to continue in IM, so participants agree to switch to phone or FTF interaction

ialog and culture of a new generation of communications – the instant message.

Instant messaging is a communication technology which has allowed large and small corporations alike to experience real-time conversations in a convenient and efficient internet format.

Many companies believe instant messaging detracts from employee productivity and introduces new temptations to converse with others beyond their job duties.

Microsoft, which released these figures last week, said that there are 1.3 million users of the free service in Singapore, and they are online for an average of 12 hours a day. The number of messages sent puts Singapore's well-documented obsession with SMS texts in the shade: Though there are six million mobile phone accounts here, just one billion text messages were sent each month last year.

Such peer-to-peer networks really increase the chances of viruses, malware and other cyberthreats flowing into the office system and attacking it.'

The study challenges the widespread belief that instant messaging leads to an increase in disruption. Some researchers have speculated that workers would use instant messaging in addition to the phone and e-mail, leading to increased interruption and reduced productivity

two-thirds of all teenagers use Instant Messaging, and of that group, half use IM every day.

Much like e-mail, which can be pretty informal, IM takes a relaxed and streamlined approach to communication. Since the emphasis is on speed and brevity rather than adherence to formal rules of grammar, a sort of textual shorthand has emerged.

It's not hard to see why, as it allows people stay connected across the globe without pesky long-distance phone bills. Interestingly, some recent versions of IM software have begun to offer audio and video chat.

IM’s growing acceptance in business is that it allows for real time communication and information flow.

IM is an easy alternative to emails and phone calls. An email has a more formal “in black and white” connotation while phone calls are more personal and intrusive. IM, on the other hand can get fast responses from people who take forever to respond to an email or those that ignore phone calls. And it’s hard to ignore a popup window or flashing button waiting for your response! So the tendency is to just respond. The immense popularity of texting or SMS in Singapore is a further extension of the comfort level of Singaporeans using chats to communicate.

IM’s informal evolution into a workplace tool means most users are unaware of potential risks. There could be information leakage – intentionally or accidentally, via your conversation partner or an eavesdropping third party and possibly; malware and security intrusions such as infiltration of worms, viruses, Spim (spam over IM) and hacking.