Shoutbox

We all know instant messaging is a big part of our daily lives now. But is this thing truly good for us? I was wondering what you guys thought of it. Is it good, bad? Why?



My personal point of view is actully neutral.

Good things :

Communication All Over The World
Fast Communication
Easy Access To Communication
Keeps A Certain Privacy

Bad Things :

Can make someone forget their grammar.
Gets people to communicate over computers then to meet
Get people to stay alone and chat instead of having a real life

i think overall it is just slightly a bad thing... but the internet and the fact that you would be able to do it good. These advances in technology should be prided, but i do miss the times where everyone i know used to come out daily on a regular basis, but now im stuck here talking to friends down the road because they wont come out because 'its too cold'. although, it does help me keeping in contact with everyone.... for example, i am still talking to 16 of the greatest friends i have made in 2 weeks from Egypt last August....

I don't really your bad things go for everyone. I try to keep a correct spelling and I use capital letters etc when I write longer sentances. Also, if I write something wrong I usually correct if I notice it. Also, I (at least for now) rather meet up with persons than chat with them on MSN.

(I rule.)

I think overall it's a good thing. You just shouldn't let it come to extremes... For people i know in real life i always prefer meeting them in person rather then IM. I think my Dutch grammar would be better without IM because i talk to much English online. But, my English has only got better . As for a social life... i always (try to) put that in the first place, i wll never prefer to stay at home and chat while friends go out.

Other then that, IM is great and saves allot of time and money (allot of IM messages would have been phonecalls or SMS otherwise). And IM can eventually create reallife friendships too .

add bad thing: people who aren't aware of the danger, can be kidnapped and other stuff i'd rather not talk about...

(i already stalked a couple members on the forum for fun )

This is great, can you guys go ahead and give me more arguments, why it could be good or bad in general?

I think that if someone has a social life outside the computer than IM won't cause a problem.  However, if they're already socially 'isolated' then IM is not the best way to solve it.

i like IM because i live in the middle of nowhere literally and if i didnt have IM then it would be very hard for me to contact my friends

quote:

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Originally posted by remember_987
i like IM because i live in the middle of nowhere literally and if i didnt have IM then it would be very hard for me to contact my friends

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good point, but around where i live (in a pretty busy city) people are slowly stopping coming out, im trying hard to get people out more often but times are changing, and im not too happy about it. Also, the new release of WLM later in the year isnt going to help either

i think it depends on how you use it.
it should never be over meeting someone.
i sometimes use it for school work if my team cant get together for some reason.