Slashdot Mirror
Downsides to Intrafamily IM?
Frisky070802 writes "The NY Times has run a column on how many families now use instant messaging within a household, for instance to ask what someone wants for dinner. This is especially popular as whole houses get wired (or wireless) and computers are scattered throughout the house. This is the case at my house but I tend to be the only one who stays on AIM reliably. Can Slashdotters offer some personal experience, pro/con, with being instantly and constantly accessible to one's spouse and children? Does this tend to break down your 'personal time'?"
Everyone in my family uses AIM to communicate around the house. There aren't really any cons to it aside from the fact that it tends to make you lazier and you lose the exercise of having to get up and walk to the person you want to talk to.
This is ridiculous. Just physically walk into the room they are in and ask them "What do you want for dinner?" Are people becoming so lazy and scared of others (including family) that they can only communicate via IM, cell phones, email...ect.
Trust me the small walk from room to room, will not affect your pear like body shape.
I'm AIM'ing my brother right now from my laptop. Its actually really nice, since if you see a cool website, you can just send a link, instead of running upstairs and showing it to him on his computer.
What IM is really useful for, however, is keeping in touch with people long-distance. IM has a relaxed, conversational quality that you can't get from a phone call. With the phone, there is pressure to finish the call quickly, and it is something that you do on special occasions. With IM, you can just say hi, or share a random funny thought, without wasting anyone's time.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Ok, enough is enough. I can't believe there are professionals in this world that think this is a GOOD thing. I regularly stop IM conversations with a phrase like - "Shouldn't this be a phone/face-to-face conversation?" The text medium simply leaves too much room for misunderstanding.
Families need to learn to DEAL with eachother, and having your body language and voice inflection sheilded sure as hell isn't going to help.
Kids these days. (I'm 22, and I get scared.)
you obviously don't have a baby. when you are in bed with sleeping baby next to you on the wireless laptop and wife is working in the home office, IM is a godsend.
screaming=kid wakes up = your 20 minutes of private time today is over!
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I've just been reading the past 30+ comments, and no one seems to think that this is a problem!!
Sure, for the teen geeks out there who like a lil privacy (I don't mean like thaT.. well, maybe I guess I do) this is OK for. But for a family to be a family this sure does pose major problems?
A poster a few messages up claimed his wife and him have nothing to talk about when they get home after talking all day. What about for the parent and child who would rather IM while around the house. Doesn't prolonged exposure to this make the child more unwilling to talk to his/her parent face-to-face about sex/drugs/abuse??
I know I tried my damnedest to remain an reclusive troll around my house, but thankfully my parents were active in my life and always asked questions. Hindsight being what it is, I'm glad we came to a good balance between privacy and parenting! That sort of thing requires you to LOOK at your parents and FACE your problems/fears.. not hitting "Block" or "Exit".
I know I have a point here, and I'm trying to find it.
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
For example: me, my brother, my mom and my dad all live in different cities. We keep in touch via IM.
- This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along, move along..
Maybe you should step away from the IM for a bit, and are you sure she feels the same way about it that you do? Women are quite a bit less inclined to want to communicate through a device. They crave one on one personal interaction and I dont think going thru IM counts. Maybe you have a exception there, but I bet she misses curling up on the couch with you and talking about things. When you get home and there's nothing left to talk about, I think it says you're spending too much time connected to each other. Smothering your wife is just as bad as ignoring her, I think. The trick is balancing everything. Why dont you ask her tonight straight up if she misses those days where you would sit down and catch up with each other? Bet she will surprise you.
Have you considered families that live in houses that are so big, you would have to choose between either not communicating at all, or using IM? Or one family member is upstairs, and the other is downstairs? Yeah, there are those intercom things, or you can use a phone (maybe an internal PBX), but IM is great when you already have the infrastructure. I would throw Voice-over-IP into the mix personally.
Also, it is cool to IM between roommates/family because you can send links or copy and paste, etc. Its easier to help someone with their computer using IM, then with verbal communication.
Considering how much time people spend in front of the computer, this is a good thing because it allows them to communicate even if they are glued to the PC.
so families are using a new communication tool to, um, communicate, and people are asking if this is reducing communication within families?
is im or email or irc or phone or letter or videophone or telegraph the same as talking face to face? no, they're all different. and none are best, certain circumstances lend themselves better to certain methods. some people find letters a better method of telling family members bad news. i like people to email me info like addresses, phone numbers or email addresses. irc is a nice supplement to conference calls as it lets taking minutes be distributed.
but i supposed change always sees this. "oh no, it's different, it must be BAAAAD!"
whatever.
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I didn't refer to the google cache of the article because the google cache isn't intended to bypass site registration policies.
Why can't people register, for free, without complaining?
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
Then don't read the article.
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
I asked my daughter why she preferred IM to the old teenage standby -- hours on the phone. The answer surprised me. She could see who was online.
From her perspective it solved two problems
1. You knew in advance who was available to talk (lowered chance of rejection).
2. It avoided the unpleasant experience of having to mediate access through a parent ("he's not in", "he can't come to the phone", "he's been grounded and can't talk"). This is actually a variant of #1.
So it's all about saving face and managing rejection. IM provides lots of strategies and aids to do just that.
Given that it solves or mitigates two teenage problems (potential rejection by absence or parent, and parental control), I predict the first cellphone company to implement a usable buddy list wins.
My husband and I often work long or odd hours, or other committments will have us coming and going, but we usually have access to a computer while at work, besides what we have at home.
It's very easy to chat about the day (vent frustrations, really, or the question of what's for dinner and who's picking it up, etc.) while it is happening or we have a free moment. There are days that if we see each other, one of us might be sleeping, so we may not get to chat at home for a few days in a row, but through email and IM we can still communicate ("don't wait up for me" - "dinner is on your own", etc.)
If it weren't for IM, I'd fear that we wouldn't get to talk very often or know what's going on in each other's lives. But since we're usually both wired, we can still communicate even when we're not in the same physical place.
-mrv
My spouse and I share an office. We sit across from each other. We can each look to the left of our monitors and see the other's face -- no yelling required (especially after putting the Athlon with jet-engine-like fan in the next room; door shut).
We still IM each other, every day. Why? Because we read a lot of web information and it's just so convenient to post a link to the other about our findings.
Or when a family member IMs one of us, it's easy to just copy the Jabber log out of gaim and paste it into the other's message window and share a conversation.
Or when a client IMs one of us, we can let the other in on the question or panic-stricken demand for help and colaborate on a course of action.
That's why!
The only problem I see with this sudden increase in instant communication is the eventual rise of linguistic entropy. Have you ever read an old collection of letters? I remember being impressed at some of the letters foot soldiers in the Civil War wrote to their families. Even moderately educated people seemed to write very well. I'm sure I sound like an old fogey, and that's okay. I also understand that language is an evolving thing. However, I think we are slowly degrading our language much in the same way instant mass media has eroded our art.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
I always try to use proper grammar and spelling, whether it be on IRC, IM or anywhere else. To see people giving it the usual "lol omg wtf !!11!1!1!" or "n e 1 no how 2 do sumfin" makes me cringe. English is your mother tongue. Nurture it, don't assrape it.
Is it so big that you can't just call out or walk for 10-15 seconds to talk to somebody? I've used IM clients to have a silent conversation in a crowded room before but not for regular communication at home.
I had no idea what fucking luddites you slashdotters are. Do you have any idea what technology is for at all? The point is if I am working upstairs it is damned inefficient to walk all the way downstairs, stop waht I am doing, interrupt someone else, and stop what they are doing, just so I can ask them a one sentence question. It is stupid and unnecessary thanks to technology.
We are not talking about ending family communication. That happened decades ago. We are talking about making it possible again. Families are busy, dispersed, and engaged in all sorts of distracting tasks. There are few chances for familial communication especially with the death first of nightly gatherings for reading and prayer and second with the death of the family dinner.
I am not saying an effort to revive such practices is misguided, but what if you could talk to your family while doing other things? That is what instant messaging was invented for. It is there so you can talk to multiple people at once while coding, posting to slashdot, writing the great american novel, doing your homework, balancing the budget, or whatever it is you are doing on your computer. It means you can talk to the rest of the family and ask simple questions and make decisions together.
Now that the rest of the family have computers, pdas, cell phones and such it is especially spiffy because you can text message and talk to your kids and family members to keep tabs on what they are doing and coordinate that family dinner that died so long ago for lack of coordination and communication.
Also, the internet and instant messaging are great for people who do not live with their families. I communicate with the wired members of my family much more often simply because they are available to me. If you are back in the 19th century sending paper letters through snail mail you get much less communication.
"What ever happened to just screaming/yelling down a hallway?"
Hey dad!! DAAAAAAAAD! Go to ay ess kay dot ess el ay ess H (I don't know how to spell H) dee oh tee dot oh ar gee slash see oh em em ee eh tee ess dot pee el question mark es eye dee equals 91426 and symbol see eye dee equals 7867909... that comment was really funny! What? Emai? Okay.
"Derp de derp."