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Instant Messaging For Introverts
adamengst tips an article up on TidBITS that explores the persistent reluctance of many nerds to embrace fully new communications media such as IM and Twitter. In this thoughtful article Joe Kissell explores, from the inside, the mind of the introvert and how this personality style often struggles with new "always-on" media. The result is a sometimes exasperated incomprehension on the part of the more extroverted. Well worth a read.
Twitter and things like that add useless noise to the Web 2.0. Who's sick of some idiot twittering what they're up to all the time and drowning out all the more thoughtful status updates on Facebook? I don't think even extroverts want to know what everyone is thinking or doing all the time, for fear of realizing how dilute their thoughts really are... it's like those really noiesy couples that talk all the time, but if you ever listen in they're talking about jack all and it deteriorates into whining.
Actually maybe I shouldn't have been so extroverted as to post this. Alright everyone, let's not post at all in protest of extroversion...
Anyone who wants or needs to concentrate suffers from the constant barrage of interruptions from this 'always on' technology.
IM, Cellphones, SMS etc. It seems to be expected now that everyone should be instantly contactable, at any time, for the most trivial of communications.
I'm not an introvert, but prefer to be uninterrupted unless it's something really important.
I annoy people by not playing the game, by turning off my cellphone, not running an IM client (unless I want to specifically talk to someone), only checking my email twice a day etc.
The constant jabbering and twittering that surrounds us now really pisses me off. QUIET please!
Wait, so you mean the name isn't an explicit metaphor likening its users to mindless birds, sharing every tiny, half-formed thought that crosses their pea-sized brain to everyone within ear-shot?
And because I don't want to hear it, they're trying to frame this as something wrong with me?
I don't believe introverts regard IM the same way as face-to-face communications. I know a lot of people that are socially very shy in public, that practically live in IM or WOW etc.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Have fun "getting things done" while life passes you by. A virtual life is a fine replacement for a real life, but you have to communicate somewhere or you're living out some phychological damage or something...
The reverse may be true. While the majority of the population is amusing themselves online the introverts will be off in their corners reading their books without fear of interruption.
Not too well written, I agree; but thats the first time I've read something that kinda explains to me my own feelings about IM.
I've currently got problems with it. I leave Skype on full time these days for Biz purposes, and my GF wants to pop up a chat window every 10 freaking minutes, breaking my concentration, effectively ending my ability to do any meaningful work; I end up just surfing instead of trying to do anything, because I know I'm just going to get interrupted anyway.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
You may not like it, thse IM pop-ps may be annoying, but it beats answering the phone. At least with IM, I can interact with the person when I feel like it and/or have time. With the stupid phone, it's the other way around.
Yes, I believe the telephone is productivity's worst enemy.
I had occasion to leave the cube a while back and spend a few days working around a conference table with a bunch of other folks in a very busy environment, the control room of a very large conference with thousands of people from all around the country.
My tablemates were utterly confounded that I had no IMs, one of my cell phones was often off with an outgoing message of "I don't pick up these messages, so don't bother", that I never sent any text messages, that I used an old-school one-way pager, and that I actually checked incoming email "only" every couple of hours or so. They thought I was a complete neanderthal. Yet I was the IT guy for the conference. In fact, I had been specifically requested by the head of the planning team; he had worked with me before and valued not just my willingness to work long and hard but my ability to communicate face-to-face with the hordes of hyper managers and executives who inevitably showed up with work-stopping computer problem and have to be "handled" properly while they get their problems fixed.
I got the assignment mostly because I was seen as a good communicator. Yet the entire rest of his staff (who I met for the first time at this event) thought I was nuts to be so out of touch.
I've never thought that avoiding distractions and interruptions made for poor communication. Indeed, my attitude is quite the opposite. It also seems to be increasingly rare these days.
Odd. To me, this is really, really odd.
And yes, I am strongly introverted.
The solution to your problem is have multiple accounts, one for business, one for your friends, and one for dirty cyber with 19yo whores (30yo fat virgin nerd guys doing a girly voice) you met in a chatroom.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
I definitely recognise myself in the article's description: I generally write 2 or 3 versions of an email before finally sending it and I really don't get on with IM-style communication.
You mean to say you take the time and thought required to write something worth reading?
There seems to be a trend in recent years for people to consider email another form of IM. Subscribe to mailing list with 10K users, and you'll find people repeatedly sending off unintelligible overly-abbreviated scraps of seemingly random thought without hesitation, forcing all 10K users to read and try and interpret their spew. For anyone that thinks, for example, one or more cryptic one-liners is acceptable, I'd suggest they stop and consider how many followups to followups are required when, by comparison, a coherent thought written out using complete sentences would have saved everyone both time and grief in almost all cases.
Too much trouble or time to bother with? See how well you can communicate with your significant other using postit note reminders stuck on a refrigerator door before a misunderstanding and a day spent stewing over a perceived insult occurs.
IM has its place and is no doubt useful (invaluable, even) in certain scenarios. If you accept that it's the quality of communication that matters, then the pervasive influence of IM can be characterised fairly as somewhere between an unfortunate habit and a disease. Not that there's ever been a golden age of electronic communication, of course. I do wonder how it is, though, that in a form of communication that's entirely written, people don't hesitate to offer the impression that they're either morons, or complete illiterates.
My use of IM has devolved into occasional replies of "This is worth discussing. Call me when you have time and we'll take it up then." The rest is noise. No point in trying to do accomplish something when neither party has the time to deal with it, is there?
I carpool with a guy that is going through an amicable divorce that is turning messier by the day. She communicate a LOT by text message - not "Pick up some milk" but "I think we should go to counseling" and "I hate you and I never want to talk to you again". Texting has given her the ability to vomit out all her surface thoughts without the burden of reflection or instant feedback from a face to face conversation. Lovely.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Interrupts your work AND doesn't go down well?
Get a new GF imo.
My wife and I have had quite the opposite experience. IM allows us to calmly discuss the most sensitive topics. Writing down your response forces a moments reflection and the medium strips any unwanted or imagined inflection. However, unlike email, there is no long delay allowing you to map your own broken subtext onto the message and stew over it. Misunderstandings are easy to resolve with a simple question.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
This is very bad advice. That's not to deny there's a serious issue involved here, which is balancing the uses you'd like to put your attention to with the uses others want to put it to.
My stance on this is that people deserve FULL attention. Which is why I don't let them demand a piece of my attention any time they please.
The best practice, I think. is to have ground rules and make sure people around you know what they are. These are the times/places/situations in which you can demand my attention, and these are the times/places/situations in which you can't. Reasonable exceptions of course apply: "I am about to commit suicide" or "the house is on fire" or "I'm pregnant" for example.
On the other hand when it's open season on your attention, you have to be ready to let them have it ALL.
The reason your brother is annoying you when he tries to engage you in a discussion about sports is that you are working at cross purposes. If you are prepared to set aside the other purpose for the moment, then the annoyance goes away. If you really listen to him, it won't feel like you are wasting your time. You may also find that people talk about different things if you really listen to them. Your brother may lay off sports because you ask a lot of stupid (ane therefore often difficult to answer) questions. Or you may find yourself learning something new, which is never a waste of time.
People are sloppy about this, because most of the time people just want a little attention. If you have the gift of small talk, it's not hard to satisfy this, and life goes smoothly and you'll make lots of friends. If you don't have the gift of small talk, it's worth cultivating it because it does a real service to other people, some of whom (presumably) you care about.
So separate the blocks of time that belong entirely to you, and the blocks of time you are willing to let others take pieces from. Then when your girlfriend wants to yammer about some television show, set aside whatever you are doing, turn to her, and treat this moment as if there were no conceivable purpose more interesting and important than to spend it talking about what she wants to talk about. Whether you are hot on the trail of a cure for cancer, or a proof that P=NP, or the reason her favorite performer got voted off the TV show, you could not possibly give her a jot more attention, nor what she has to say an iota more serious consideration.
This should be worth trying just for the prank value.
But try setting aside time for yourself and time for other people, just for a few days. Then ask yourself: the problem is really that people bother you with useless information, or that you are blaming others for your own failure to manage your own attention span?
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