Don't shoot the Messenger

I talk about paradigms sometimes. I used to call myself Paradigm Shift as my handle on MSN Messenger – then someone abbreviated it to Shifty, and I didn’t like it so much – but once something like that happens, you have to take decisive action – so Paradigm Shift is no more.

This is prophetic, though, because in this post, I want to talk about Instant Messaging (IM). And it really is something of a paradigm shift. I had this brought home to me clearly and graphically last week with a friend who had something serious to say, and chose Messenger to say it on.

Means of communication are many and varied – the mainstream ones I think of are phone, in person, and by mail (letter or e-mail). I’m sure you can also think of smarty-pants variations on these – but they are the main ones. And we know how to use them. It really depends on what you want to say, and how you relate to the person you want to say it to.

There are also pro’s and con’s to each means of communication. With a letter, you can write it in your own time, think carefully about the content and the wording. So this is good if it is a complex or sensitive message and you want to make sure you explain yourself fully and clearly. The disadvantage is that you might have to wait hours, days or weeks for a reply. It’s rarely instant. This can keep you on tenterhooks, and be a cause of anxiety.

Face to face is great because you get 100% communication – you get the body language, the inflections – everything. You also get an instant response to whatever it is you are saying, but it can also be confrontational, and you have to think about what you’re saying on the fly. You can rehearse the first bit beforehand, but thereafter, you have to wing it, based on what the other person says.

Telephone is an interesting compromise. You don’t get the full communicational monty (no body language), but you do get to hear inflections and so on (unless it’s VoIP – in which case you’re lucky to hear anything!!). You get an instant response, and you have to make it up on the fly, but you don’t have to look the person straight in the eye, and they can’t see your face. Depending on what you’ve got to say, these might be good or bad things.

So there are two points I want to make here:
depending on the situation, you pick the most appropriate means of communication
Instant Messaging represents a paradigm shift

You have to accept this, and the consequences. Instant Messaging represents a paradigm shift. It’s not any of the above. You can’t compare it to written or verbal communication, as outlined above. It is different and unique. And you REALLY need to think about that, and what the impact and effects are. Let me spell a few things out for you:

It is instant – the other person can see what you’re typing as soon as you hit ENTER, which reduces your thinking and planning time to near-zero – much like verbal communication. There is an audit trail – you can look back and see what was said – much like a letter. It puts you on the spot as much as a face-to-face meeting or a phone call. If you says something controversial like “you lied to me, didn’t you?” Where do you go from there? It’s dead hard to ignore. You’re almost guaranteed a long and panic-filled pause.

Another thing is that Instant Messaging has more depth than verbal communication. You do think more than when you chat verbally. It is a more concise way – perhaps because not many people can touch-type really fast, so people tend to only say stuff that is significant – there’s little “white noise”. So – if you’re communicating with someone over Messenger, there’s a good chance that you will get to know that person quicker and more deeply than you otherwise would. It’s not as intimate as e-mail, but it’s more intimate than you might expect.

So my strong advice to anyone who has gotten this far down the post is to think damn carefully about what you want to say, and then pick the most appropriate method of communication. The situation I alluded to at the start of this post involved a guy who wants to keep in touch with someone a long way off. I asked him if he used IM – he said yes – and we talked a while about that. What I didn’t do was to explain the above to him – I thought it was obvious, but now I don’t think it is obvious. To my mind, and this is my opinion – he used IM for something inappropriate. He didn’t do anything flat-out wrong – just not what I would do. As a result, he didn’t get the outcome he was hoping for – and I’m not surprised. Don’t put someone under pressure or “on the spot” on Messenger – unless that’s exactly the affect you want to have!

I love IM – I’d be totally lost without it, and my world would be a much less filled and interesting place. IM is wonderful for keeping in touch of people around your office or around the planet. I use IM pretty much the whole time – it is part of who I am, and the way that I relate to those whom I love, who are important to me, and even who I work with. But realise that IM is something relatively new and different – treat it with care.

Mull this over! I’d really like to hear your comments, thoughts and experiences on this!