Guilt and loathing about IM

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IM etiquetteLike many people, I have a love-hate relationship with IM. On the one hand, I see it’s potential for useful and efficient communication. On the other, it can be an invitation to interruptions, which for long periods of time cause me to stay away from IM. In a recent interview, Bruce Schneier had this to say about e-mail:

One of the properties of the Internet is that it takes interactions out of their normal social context. If I were at a gathering and I saw someone who I wanted to talk to, I would see him in context. If he were mobbed with people, I might decide to talk to him later. If he were engrossed in work, I might decide to say hello in passing. If he looked bored, I would be more likely to engage him in conversation.

The Internet lacks this context. When you send someone an e-mail, you send it into the void. Is the recipient busy? Is he feeling like talking? Has he been deluged with dozens of similar e-mails? You have no way of knowing.

The same applies to instant messaging, but I think this lack of context is worse for IM. The reason is that while e-mail is an asynchronous form of communication, while IM is not. That is, even if I’m busy when you send me an e-mail, there’s no expectation that I have to answer it right away–or at least there shouldn’t be. It should be perfectly acceptable if I answer you the next day. The “I” in IM, however, stands for instant.

Researching this topic, I’ve read a bunch of articles on IM etiquette, and I’ll list the good ones at the end. However, one in particular by Rafe Needleman captured exactly what I have felt for a long time:

I have not solved the interruption problem of IM. My half-way solution — which is not a good one — is that I don’t start my IM application with Windows. I have to consciously turn it on.

That done, I’m wide open for interruption. Some interruptions are good. If my buddy Tom down the hall wants to go out for lunch, an IM is a good way to set it up. If our product manager, Karen, has a quick question about a feature story we’re posting to CNET.com, IM is a useful way to communicate. But if friends or family members from outside work just want to chat, well, as much as I’d love to talk to them, I tend to get rather focused during work and don’t always have the time or the spare mental cycles for a warm, personal conversation. So I have to type, “I’ll ping you later,” and then suffer IM guilt for the rest of the day.

The problem with IM is that there is no easy way to set up plausible deniability for ignoring an incoming communication. By contrast, if your phone rings and you don’t want to talk, you just don’t pick up, and nobody’s the wiser. If your IM is showing “available” and you don’t reply to a message, you’re a jerk. On some IM programs, you can set individual availability states per buddy, but it’s a pain in the neck to manage. What I want is a global availability setting that shows me as neither “away,” nor “available,” but rather, “possibly available.” Then if I don’t answer a message, I can claim I was away from the office.

This is why I just don’t run my IM program most of the time.

And I think that’s why a lot of people don’t log in to IM. The problem stems from different expectations by different people about what IM is for or how it should be used or when. I’m generally of the opinion that long conversations should be carried on over the phone or in person. This goes double for catching up chit-chats unless the other person is somewhere to which international calling rates are prohibitive. For me, few things are worse than an IM that reads, “Hey, how have you been?”

As Needleman writes, I feel lots of guilt for saying that. What a jerk I must be since the other person is a friend being friendly. But to my mind, if you want to catch up, give me call. Another reason I feel guilty is that I must not really mean what I’ve said because I find myself engaged in some chit-chat conversations that are certainly worth it. For example, I have a good friend who just joined the Army and shipped off for basic training. He obviously can’t call me whenever he wants, but he does have access to IM (incredibly). Catching up over IM in that case makes perfect sense.

So, having pinpointed my inquietude, my next question was, who is breaching etiquette here? The interruptors or my jerk ass? As it turns out, both. I’m definitely to blame for not adjusting my status setting. I pledge to do it from now on. But I do have to say, as Needleman points out, that sometimes I’m busy but still very willing to answer quick IMs if they’re substantive. They don’t even have to be important or pressing, just a real purpose. Setting my status to “Busy” will be read by many as “Do not disturb,” which is not what I mean. But setting it to “Available” will be read as free for anything. My plan of attack will be to try to set a custom message that conveys my level of availability. I’ll let you know how it goes.

That said, there are some norms we should all follow when we initiate IMs. From a couple of the articles I’ve read:

Knock first: Open every message by asking whether you’re interrupting (”Is this a good time to talk about Davis?”). On your end, learn to say no when you’re busy: “Can’t now, how about at 2?” or “Later, OK?”

Don’t chat for long: If you have several things to discuss, use the phone. Also, because, as Schneier pointed out, there are no cues in cyberspace (no looking at one’s watch, no natural pause that leads to a goodbye) IM conversations can last painfully forever.

I’d love to know you’re thoughts on this, so I’m turning comments on. Here are some good articles on IM netiquette:

Feb 8, 2007 | Comments | Tags: ,

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