Instant Messaging - bane or boon?
14 October 2005 | Tools, Instant Messaging | 1 Comment
Whatever you make out of it - instant messaging (IM) has become a part of most of the knowledge workers’ life. The advantages are obvious: presence awareness, possibility to use it for a quick chat, … But you also have to see the disadvantages that are not as obvious: distractions from incoming messages, distractions from pop-up windows indicating login/logoff of contacts, … Bearing in mind, that an average human being needs at least 8 minutes to concentrate on a certain task, these distractions can hold you away from work for a whole day - and the number of distractions is growing by each contact added to your contact list. All that leads to the question: do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? If not: what can we do to minmize the distractions without losing the indisputable advantages of IM?
To make it clear in advance: I am a passionate Skype-user no more willing to live without it. But in the last time I do actually experience the disadvantages described above. I use it for getting support by my personal network as well as for giving support (Martin Röll described such a situation in this post - I give this kind of free support using Skype). Therefore, IM software can be seen as a kind of support tool and also as a tool used to learn and expand your knowledge. Something, that is ideal for knowledge workers, isn’t it? I intend to write more about my thesis “IM software as an e-learning tool” in another post coming up within the next days, so I will not go too much in detail with it right now. IM tools make it possible to “expand” your office all over the globe, especially if VoIP and even webconferencing are integrated. The quick chat you have with your colleague in the same office is now also possible with a friend or colleague miles away. But what if you are working on a conference paper or report you really have to concentrate on? Then each distraction by IM will cost you more than the moment to respond that you have to work right now. Solution: turn your status to “not available”. But doesn’t this take away the whole advantage of an instant messaging system? Nobody will be able now to contact you instantly, if necessary. Being distracted by personal conversations is another disadvantage. Your social network will always comprise personal friends - and so will your IM contact list, I guess. Therefore, there is a big deal of a chance that one of your friends contacts you regarding the next holidays, the new girl he fell in love with or just for having a little chat. Sometimes everybody needs such kind of break - but you never know if you are going to distract somebody.
Putting it all together, I think that you will have to live with all of the disadvantages if you want to profit from all the advantages IM can deliver. In my opinion, the advantages are outweighing the disadvantages. Therefore, I am using IM with all consequences and rarely use the status “not available” - so feel free to skype me (details on the contact page).
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oops wrong blog…nice blog though very intersting.