Fluce Goosetutz

Professor Gretchen Wheatleader

GSW 1120.132L

14 March 2006

Cheap Thoughts
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Instant Messenger has become one of the most common means of communication. Nearly everyone has it, nearly everyone uses it, and those who use it use it nearly every day. Josh Keys, a guest columnist for the BG News, observes, "As I walked down the hallway to a friend's dorm room, I couldn't help being distracted by a distinct, yet now common tone coming from almost every room in the hall.... Every day since I've been here, I hear the same tunes: . . . the sound of the very trendy AOL Instant Messenger service (Keys 4). According to a survey that I conducted among students at Bowling Green State University, 30 out of 46 respondents said that they spent as much or more time on conversations through Instant Messenger as through e-mail and/or phone. Twenty-one of these respondents reported that they typically spend more than an hour per day using Instant Messenger. (Survey). In a certain sense this is to be expected. Throughout history, old forms of communication have continually been replaced by new ones. Face-to-face conversations were the only way to communicate before the written word. Communication then advanced from letters to telephone conversations, to e-mail, and now on to Instant Messenger. There are many reasons for accepting this new form of communication. It is more convenient, it is popular, and it allows people to control the conversation and project any image they wish. However, the main reason that Instant Messenger is so widely used is that it is conducive to the kind of conversation that people in our culture today have grown to expect and enjoy.
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One of the most commonly accepted reasons for the widespread use of Instant Messenger is its convenience. Keys notes that "[these new messaging services] are extremely effective and useful. They take less than five minutes to download, set-up and install. . . ." (Keys 4). Speed has become one of the most sought out commodities in existence. That is a huge part of the appeal of Instant Messenger: it is so incredibly fast. Author S. 1. Salamensky realizes this fact when he compares computer mediated communication to the French pneumatique, in which letters could be sent through a system of pneumatic tubes which ran throughout the entire city, and received within an hour.
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What made it seem so intimate, I think, was ... being able to fantasize that in the space of perhaps only an hour the other person would sense both the writing and the intensity of their desire to communicate quickly. There was this fantasy that I write it, you read it, . . . almost instantaneously. With significant correspondence by ... electronic communications there is ... that kind of "instantaneous communication." (Salamensky 234).
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Instant Messenger is also much cheaper than other forms of communication such as phone conversations. It thus provides a fast and inexpensive way to communicate with people over long distances, when face-to-face communication would be impractical, if not impossible. In addition, it offers the possibility of multiple simultaneous conversations. The user is no longer limited to communicating with only one person at a time, which makes Instant Messenger even more convenient.
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However, convenience is not the primary reason for the use of Instant Messenger
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because the other forms of communication do offer these same conveniences. Phone
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conversations are just as fast as Instant Messenger. In fact, they are faster because there is no delay while the words are being typed. Also, if cost were the only issue, people would not spend so much time conversing on Instant Messenger with people who live within local calling range, or even in the same building. Keys reports, "I even had a friend ask his girlfriend out on-line, though she lives not too far away. (By that, I mean down two flights of stairs)" (Keys 4). Finally, for talking to many people at the same time, face-to-face conversations are still more effective.
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Another probable reason for the use of Instant Messenger is simply the fact that "everybody else is using it." Since it is so common, to not communicate via Instant Messenger often means to not communicate at all. Once a trend has grown in society, even people who were initially reluctant to go along with it become a part of it. For example, up until recently, senior citizens were very hesitant to use computers at all, not to mention buying them or making them their principle means of communication. According to an article written by Michael Noer for the Forbes magazine in 1995, at that time "the elderly represent[ed] only 1 % of all Internet users . . . ." (Noer 240). In 2000, however, the Bureau of Census reported that 12.3 % of those who had used an on-line service within the past 30 days were 55 years old and over. Because Internet use and communication via the Internet have become so common, even senior citizens are beginning to accept it and are becoming its biggest fans. In an article for the US News and World Report, David L. Marcus tells the story of one such instant communication convert,
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For most of the 201h century, Betty Flanagan was a technophobe. She drove cars with stick shifts, eschewed automatic coffee makers, and refused to buy an electric garage door opener. So she was skeptical when, on her 80'h birthday, her son arrived with a desktop computer. But now after lessons from her granddaughters –Flanagan spends every evening in her kitchen .... zapping messages to old friends and young relatives. (Marcus 61).
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Even senior citizens discovered the joys of the Internet and computers in general simply because they were so widely used. In the same way, even the most reluctant of users eventually catch on to Instant Messenger simply because all their friends are doing so. While this is a valid reason for the use of Instant Messenger, it cannot be the main reason, because it does not explain how Instant Messenger became popular in the first place. There must be something attractive about it that caused so many people to begin using it so much.
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One such attractive quality is the fact that Instant Messenger makes conversations much less threatening. People feel much more secure conversing on Instant Messenger than they do using other media because it is so impersonal. According to a student at Bowling Green State University, "You can. . . talk about many things on AOL that you would be less likely to talk about face 2 face or on the phone." (Survey). Facial expressions and vocal inflections cannot be detected over Instant Messenger, so if one wants to hide one's emotions, it is much easier to do so on Instant Messenger. As John L. Locke observes, "Our great-grandparents lived very differently. They could see and hear their communicants.... From an averted gaze, a grin, or a catch in the voice, our great-grandparents knew when other people were ill at ease or saying something not quite true." (Locke 18). He continues, "When we use our voice, people acquire a great deal of information about us even if we would prefer that they did not." (Locke 25). Salamensky echoes this thought when he says, "the presence of the body really makes
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a difference. We're surrounded by so many cues that situate us as people, in ways that can be comforting or stimulating or upsetting." (Salamensky 244). Without the presence of these physical cues, a person can appear to be whomever he wishes. He can even assume a false identity and give any impression he chooses. Salamensky notes, "Psychologically, even when people know that users of a particular system can easily find our their 'true' identities, when people see a name other than theirs on the screen and 'their' words are being assigned to this 'other' name, they feel anonymous," (Salamensky 237). People are often more comfortable in this anonymous state because they do not feel pressured to behave or speak in a certain way. According to the results of a survey reported in Communication Quarterly, "[T]he computer mediated setting ... [is] perceived by participants as ... more uninhibited than FtF [face-to-face] settings." (Pratt et al. 47). However, even this cannot be the main reason for the widespread use of Instant Messenger because e-mail is even more impersonal, secure, and controllable. With e-mail, there is no possibility of sudden unanticipated questions, and the conversation can be ended at any moment. It would appear rude to suddenly sign off of an Instant Messenger Conversation with no explanation.
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The most probable main cause for the use of Instant Messenger is the fact that it is conducive to the kind of conversation that most people in our society have come to feel comfortable with and expect. Different media of communication favor different kinds of communication. Neil Postman notes, "[H]ow we are obliged to conduct. . . [human] conversations will have the strongest possible influence on what ideas we can conveniently express" (Postman 6). Instant Messenger certainly affects the way people communicate, but the fact that it is so widely used is a reflection of the way people are already communicating even apart from Instant Messenger. As Salamensky says, "Our satisfaction with virtual conversation, perhaps, raises questions of what we want out of talk in the rest of life." (Salamensky 244). Because it is high-speed and fragmentary by nature, Instant Messenger makes long, deep, or meaningful conversations extremely impractical. Instead it favors short, shallow, and trivial conversations, which require little or no thought. Their primary purpose is to amuse, and many people are beginning to look for amusement in all of life. Postman's description of the changes wrought by new forms of communication applies to Instant Messenger as well,
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Together, this ensemble of electronic techniques called into being a new world-a peek-a-boo world, where now this event, now that, pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again. It is a world without much coherence or sense; a world that does not ask us, indeed, does not permit us to do anything; a world that is, like the child's game of peek-a-boo, entirely self-contained. But like peek-a-boo, it is also endlessly entertaining. (Postman 77).
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That is the main attraction of Instant Messenger: entertainment. People love it because it offers entertainment but does not require large amounts of thought or effort in the process. One student at Bowling Green State University described it as "small chats with no point". (Survey). Of course, there is some point, or people would not bother to do it. The main point is that there is no point except amusement.
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Of course, it could be argued that there are other uses for Instant Messenger besides amusement. Small business companies as well as large ones could save thousands of dollars every year if they substituted Instant Messenger for long-distance phone calls. Instant Messenger can also be very useful for getting in touch with people quickly in the case of emergencies. These are legitimate reasons for using Instant Messenger, so they can lead to some of the legitimate causes for its widespread use. However, since the most common reason for using Instant Messenger is to communicate with friends, not business colleagues, the amusement that is derived from talking to friends is its most likely cause.
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There are many possible reasons for the immense popularity of Instant Messenger. It is convenient, fast, cheap, and practical even over long distances, and makes conversations with many people at once possible. Nearly everyone uses it, so to not use it means to exclude oneself from nearly all conversation. Its impersonal nature makes conversation much more secure and non-threatening. However, the main reason for its widespread use is the type of conversation, which it favors: thoughtless and amusing conversation. As long as people want this kind of conversation, they will want to continue using Instant Messenger. Many people claim to use it because it is cheap, but in saying this they unwittingly come closer to the truth than they would like to admit. The cost is very low, not only dollars and cents, but also in thoughts and effort. It offers a cheap price in exchange for cheap thoughts.
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