The Plague of IM-Laziness

Scott Manning
September 18, 2003 | Comments (4)

Instant message programs have been around for a while. Most people use them in their workplace and plenty of people use them to keep touch with close friends. It's a great concept. Other than work, I use a program to talk with friends in places like Europe and Australia. It's instant communication that I wouldn't be able to do with email.

While the programs do have their pluses, using them makes people lazy. And once someone is hooked into the laziness cycle, they can't stop. This goes far beyond the abbreviations people use (lol, brb, imho, etc.). People become reliant on IM programs to the point that they won't use any other form of communication.

When the need arrives to talk with someone, the IM-reliant person will open up their IM program to see if the person is online. If not, they simply forget the matter altogether or talk to someone else who happens to be online. Let's forget about the phone, email, or even walking over to the person's desk. If you're not signed into IM, then how could anyone possibly communicate with you?

Continuing down this path, people also use IM to communicate important business decisions. Why? Am I really that stupid to rely on text messages to make important decisions that could affect my company?

Plenty of people are.

Email vs. an instant message
For those of us attempting to track everything, IM can become a nightmare. I try to keep all correspondence done in my company in my email program somehow. When someone sends me an email to complete a task, it is sitting right there in my Inbox for me to deal with. If I want, I can forward the message or file it.

When I get an instant message, it sits in a separate window that can easily be closed or forgotten about.

For whatever reason, the act of starting a new email, addressing it, giving it a subject line, and sending it is far too much effort than sending an instant message. Dialing a phone is even harder. And getting up from the desk and walking to see the person? Forget it!

The goal of keeping some sort of paper trail on decisions made within a company is hopeless when the IM-junkies are involved.

The worst form of laziness is when I am sitting next to someone and they ask me to log into IM. I do and then they start talking to me. I'm sitting right there! Does this mean that opening one's mouth is too hard as well?

I've also marveled as I watch people type and retype the same message because the person on the other doesn't understand what is being sent. They keep typing even though the person they are communicating with is three offices away.

Dealing with the plague
Understand that what I'm talking about is the most extreme cases of IM-laziness, but it has seeped into most people in some form or another. While it may save time to have the ability to instantly send a message to someone, how much time is lost when people opt not to communicate simply because that someone isn't logged into IM?

The best solution I have with people who only use IM to talk with me about business is to insist that they send me an email afterwards concerning our discussion. If they won't send me an email, I'll send one with our conversation in the email and ask them to reply to it.

As for the people who forget to tell you stuff just because you weren't online, fire them.

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Comments (4):

1) Posted by: scottbp
September 23, 2003 9:33 PM

Of course it is not all bad. I instituted the use of IMs at my work for many reasons, mostly because I like to listen to music and was sick of people throwing stress toys across the room at me. So a large percentage of IMs at work are of the "hey scott heads up.." variety. Followed by conversation. As you can imagine using an email for this would be silly, especially since I don't check my email everytime one arrives.

Plus I have tried to make all people at work use better email practices so conversational emails work much better over IM. I know you are not saying down with all IMs but... well just raising the point that the instant message program can raise productivity also, especially for that stuff that doesn't need to be saved.

2) Posted by: Bad Mouth
October 17, 2003 9:23 PM

For Scott Manning
Yes you�re correct about IM; it does make people lazy.
It is a known fact that people abuse IM more now then ever; they have become trailing digital signal communicator junkies.
This type of person lives on IM like their life depends on it, they eat lunch and at home they even eat dinner with their desktop.
They type away anything that comes into their mind just so they can say something that they wouldn�t do in person.
People who rely on this instant messenger crap are people that need a life.
If there�s one thing I learned in the computer world and that is never depend on one thing, you do and you are on your way to becoming an idiot.
I�m sure you�ve seen lots of times where a person is doing serious work on the computer whether for their business or their company they work for. All of a sudden productivity stops short BAM, Oh no an IM message. Oh hi how are you blah blah blah.. Well now you know what that person does after he/she gets off the IM, What was I doing?
In short IM or any instant messenger type application should be banned from business places or restricted to just the higher up personnel�s.
This way the company keeps rolling in a straight fashion manner rather then halting.

As for scottbp
If I was your boss I would have fired your ass, people like you should be working and not listening to music while working.
This is why most businesses these days are all shit, because workers like you tend to think they are at home rather then at work.
Customer�s classifications, products, appointments, accounts all get screwed up by people like you who tend to wonder off into their own little world.
Then when it comes time to talk with the customer you say I�m sorry it was a computer error.
Yeah sure!
B.M

3) Posted by: clifgriffin
February 20, 2004 9:50 AM

I confess that IM is my preferred method of communication. And in some respects, it is laziness. I stand firm against the use of endless abbreviations. I use capitalization and punctuation as well.

For one, I use Trillian Pro, so I Megabytes of logs of everything I've communicated over IM in the last year. It's also extremly handy to be able to read over your exact conversation, word for word a year later. It's like an archive of your life.

For two, depending on the person (whether they are skilled at written communication, and especially in regards to Instant Messaging) using AOL can be much easier to communicate than phone or email.

I talk to 2 or 3 guys every day, I have for a long time now. You get so you know exactly what every letter of their message means because you know exactly their style of communication. Makes things soo much easier.

These days I use email for people I'm trying to keep a safe distance from.

I think I'm a perfect example of that bad of IM. I prefer it, I use it as recreation, and I won't be stopping anytime soon! :)

Clif

4) Posted by: Dan
April 20, 2004 3:10 PM

What in the name of all that is holy is going on around here.

How in the world can anything that involves sitting in front of a computer screen typing words out be easier than pressing seven numbers on a phone, laying on your couch and actually hearing what the person is saying in plain english

Thats it.
Im going to move to some third world country where they dont have all this crap