ScottMead.Info Digi Blog

Over at 43folders.com is an artical that is titled “The 7 deadly sins of instant messaging”, but some of them I dont agree with and some I currently do but I will use the whole copy/paste method but I will paste each “sin’ and comment about it.

Do not use it
It’s hard to envision, but life without IM is possible. Remember the phone? Remember face-to-face conversations? They still exist.

I agree to this to a point, but some of my friends dont even remotely close to me to just walk outside my door and see them, nor just pick up the phone and call them with out having to pay long distance charges. Do not make yourself available 24/7If you really can’t let go of chat, designate IM office hours. Limit yourself to two hours maximum a day and give yourself a curfew. You’ll get fewer interruptions and maybe even get to bed earlier. Remember, not chatting every moment means you’ll have more to talk about when you see your friends again. This one I already started doing way before I have even seen this post, I no longer online signed on to Trillian which is my IM program that allows me to be connected to AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, and MSN all in one program instead of 4 programs.

Do not expect a response
After sending someone an IM, never expect a quick response or any at all. The beauty of IM is that it lets you have “slow conversations,” allowing people to respond whenever they want.

If I am sitting at my computer not in the middle of things I will reply, but yes dont expect a reply NOW

Do not be a buddy slut
Is your buddy list as long as Heidi Fleiss’s black book? According to the Pareto principle, you spend 80 percent of your chat time with 20 percent of your buddies. Identify the buddies you don’t chat with anymore and delete them. If your buddy list is still overflowing, organize them into groups by level of importance or frequency of conversations.

I have a bad problem with this, I am too lazy to delete my old contacts that I have in my buddy list, but thats the least of my worries, because I dont pay attention who is in my list.

Do not broadcast your screen name
Never ever put your screen name on a website, blog, or social networking profile. This keeps your buddy list short and prevents stalkers from creeping you out.

I run a website I like my visitors to be able to get ahold of me in other forms other then email.

Do not forward chat messages to your phone
AOL Instant Messenger now lets you forward IM messages you receive to your phone when you’re not at a computer. I call this the electronic dog leash feature. If you have it on, turn it off now. Free yourself, run wild, and go play.

This goes along the lines of paying for Long Distance, I am cheap when it comes to this, so I dont even have text messaging on my phone so if I did this I would have to pay for long distance. Plus I have have a hard time texting on a cell phone, it takes me like 2 hours to send a text message with 160 letters.

You can read this story over at 43folders.com

Besure to visit me over at ScottsGnome.Com