Help! IM Addicted

It's three in the morning and I've been on-line all night. Actually, I haven't really stopped typing my life into the computer for five years. Instant messaging, talking by modem with cyber-friends, has become the favoured mode of communication in my high school circle. For me, it has become an addiction.

Long gone is my early rush of discovery, when I would collect my friends' e-mail addresses on scraps of paper, and then, late into the night, live through the machine, seeking acceptance amongst a global village of peers. For a young teenager going through his "awkward stage," the feeling was encapsulating and immensely satisfying.

Now I am numbed to that feeling.  And I worry that slowly but surely, talking on line is  killing my generation's ability to interact on any kind of a personal level.  That's why I'm quitting cold turkey. I'm determined to put an end to my instant messaging addiction.

Millions of users

Instant messenger (IM) programs allow millions of people worldwide to communicate online by typing messages back and forth in real time. The two main IM programs, America Online Instant Messenger (AIM) and MSN Messenger, have millions of users (AOL boasts 50 million on their official website ). The effect of IM on the mental and social health of teenagers has been little studied. 

By the time IM programs became common I was already a seasoned internet veteran, high on the out of body existence they promised.  "Since we can't be everywhere all the time, IM programs allow us to feel like we are, even though that isn't the case," says Robert Preseau, the twenty-six-year-old founder of IMaddict.com, a community of AIM users, humour, and stories.  And, he adds, "It really saves a lot on the cell phone minutes."
 
More than half of kids in Canada use IM programs, according to a study by the Media Awareness Network. The same study finds that only 28 percent of Canadian parents know their kids use IM.

Digitally enhanced awkwardness

I used to like talking on the phone. I hardly use one anymore. I've become reliant on IM programs to talk to everyone, even next door neighbours. One day a few years ago, I stumbled upon two roommates at my school, on either side of their small dorm room, chatting to each through MSN. That seemed perfectly normal to me, even cool. 

Since then, I've become convinced that IM programs help impressionable kids  procrastinate their development.  Dr. Kimberly Young, founder of the Centre for Online Addiction, considers IM using children "more at risk to not develop [face-to-face] interactions with other children."

For young people who need to hone their social skills, IM can be more a detour than a help. But it's very seductive. On the internet there are no awkward pauses.  Unlike the phone, or a face-to-face conversation, you don't need to answer right away on the internet.  You can take the time to interpret the other person's response, and then calculate your own to best compliment the situation. 

'Poor social habits or none'

What happens to a generation raised to interact like this?  For too many, instant messaging becomes a kind of conversational hibernation that handicaps. Children on IM, says Dr. Young risk "learning poor social habits or none at all."  We are losing (or did we ever know?) the art of conversation.

What does it mean that for me, and for many others on IM, we aren't really satisfied unless we are carrying on five separate online conversations at once? A lot of it is more voyeurism than conversation.  America Online defines Instant Messaging as "a convenient way to see when friends and family are online and communicate with them in real time…" The ability to "see when friends and family are online" is a pretty significant step towards online espionage. This obsession with knowing what other people are doing can consume you.  I've reached a point now that, whenever I'm not plugged in, all I can think is: "What is going on right now without me?"

Many people cite IM programs as a great way to quickly get to know someone, but it can't really allow me to get to know anyone in the classic sense..  Preseau's website allowed him to talk to thousands of new people through IM, but he says, "The problem with those conversations is they are all impersonal and I can't really call any of those people friends."

Perhaps this is because people are not themselves online, but phantoms of who they want to be.  We shape ourselves to appear to be digitally "likeable."  When you transmit self via modem you're starting with a blank slate.  You can mask your faults.  You "get to know" hundreds of perfectly pleasant, fun, likeable mannequins. 

IM generation growing up

The companies that make the programs (America Online and MSN being the largest) work hard to nurture the user's emotional attachment to the sensation of being online.  AOL's Love.com and MSN's Lavalife.com, both widely advertised on the companies' instant messaging programs, are aimed at bringing singles together. But I'm not going there. I agree with Preseau: "Without the physical presence of the person you are trying to talk to, conveying the feelings or mood of a conversation is very limited."

I find it disconcerting that it's legal to advertise these dating sites on programs used predominantly by teenagers and pre-teens. But the trend signals the aging of the IM generation. A few years ago the obsession with instant messaging might have been said to end at age seventeen; now, apparently, it lasts well into people's twenties. Keeping people hooked on the IM feeling means big profits, now doubt, for AOL and MSN.

They won't get me. I've spent my last night living on-line. I knew it when my eyes felt like lemons, burning with the lust for sleep.  I scrolled down my list of contacts, a full 150 names, and realised that I only knew what fifteen of their voices sounded like on the telephone.

I looked at my computer screen, took one last gulp of Coca-Cola and deleted my favourite IM program. Before I did, I posted a notice to my IM contacts saying I was done for good, and that if anyone wanted to communicate with me they could phone me like, you know… regular human beings.

I severed that link knowing I was permanently cutting off from my life dozens and maybe hundreds of people.  A harsh cure for total IM burnout, I guess.

But here's my thinking. Relationships take work.  Exchanging information, ideas, feelings with other humans is not a matter of convenience, it's a search for the deepest rewards. To anyone else addicted, I say: Unplug. Just try it. The relationships in your life that really matter don't fade away when your computer shuts down.

Mike LaPointe edited the on-line magazine Fuzed. He enters the twelfth grade in the fall.