Oh the joy with which I installed Microsoft Messenger.

I didn’t have to be sold its features. A pager on the Internet that lets you real-time chat with your pals and exchange files? Wowski.

Alright, alright - I never got into ICQ. It was pretty incomprehensible to me and strange people kept sending me links to nasty porn sites.

But this. Wowland. Now I get the ping of new mail and the pong of new contacts logging in. If I turn up the speakers in my office, I sound very popular indeed.

But I’d say it took about a week for the novelty to wear off and the reality to sink in. Messenger is a nightmare. A curse.

It begins with the post-installation gush when you lob loads of people into your contacts list. Far flung relatives, ancient school acquaintances, colleagues, chums, lovers, and those weird non-corporeal people you’ve met online.

Suddenly you’ve got a four screen deep list of contacts. All of whom are notified within a picosecond of you going online. All are constantly scanning for human contact.

It starts off okay. Chatting, flirting, bantering, coordinating your social life. It’s like a big online party. Then the chat starts to lose its colour. You don’t get any peace. The moment you log in, they pounce. Every second: pong! Bing! Flashy window! Pop up Screen! You’re seeing your contacts so much it’s like living with them.

At a party you can just walk away. Here you can’t remove them from your list without them knowing.

So as the conversation dries up, the psychological games begin.

You discover that “busy” or “away” are pretty much the essential Messenger states to be in - even if you’re neither. Then you generate a list of easy to type but plausible excuses not to engage in banal electronic chitchat. “In middle of something”, “some1 @ door”, “grandma just died” which are progressively refined down to “Got to go”, or the simpler but more dramatic “GTG” which implies a large passenger jet has just crashed nearby or - more likely - your disapproving, non-Messenger using partner / boss has appeared at your shoulder.

Finally you just don’t bother signing in. Or you log on in quick emergency snatches, flicking yourself to “busy” before anyone can slip in a “Yo you! What’s happening?”.

I guess, for me, the Net is a pretty solitary pursuit. In fact I suspect I might even do it to get away from people. This is why I have learnt Messenger is not for me.

Oh the joy with which I deinstalled Microsoft Messenger.

by DavidM

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