It’s 4:37 a.m. and I am still up. The sun will rise in about 90 minutes, and I am still awake on a Tuesday morning. No, I am not studying for a midterm, and no, I am not an insomniac.
The only reason I am not asleep is that my computer screen is filled with little flashing boxes. Has college life come to this?
Internet chat programs are ubiquitous on college campuses, connecting students — and in some cases, controlling and consuming students as well. This brilliant system created by America Online, which was later copied by Yahoo and Microsoft, is convenient, wasteful and downright addicting all at the same time.
Thousands of UCSD students can relate. The little ring of a newly sent message or the sound of a closing door signaling the departure of a “”buddy”” is never absent from some room in my suite.
Instant messaging programs’ omnipresence stems from the perfectly innocent motive of everybody trying to keep in touch. In the few years since its inception, AOL’s version has infiltrated the daily lives of college students everywhere.
Of course, it’s a handy tool that allows everybody with a computer and Internet access to instantly talk to anybody they want, whether they are 10 feet away or 10,000 miles away, all for free. In a microwave popcorn, drive-thru society, AOL Instant Messenger takes the cake in fulfilling instant gratification.
However, A.I.M. can quickly stop being a chain of communication and start being a chain between you and your computer. This goes back to the features of A.I.M. itself: With profiles, away messages, file transfers, buddy icons — and now subprofiles, “”friend”” quizzes and other add-ons — A.I.M. has become a labyrinth of personal information, quirky quotations and grist for the rumor mill.
It has also spawned its own kind of language, where emotion icons and onslaughts of “”hehe”” dot every conversation.
With so many different features, A.I.M. is no longer just a matter of signing on and chatting away. I spend a good chunk of time reading my friend’s brother’s cousin’s profile when I should be reading for class.
A paradoxical situation exists: A.I.M. is a simple communication medium that is complex at the same time. The majority of A.I.M. conversations are pretty pointless, and doubly so when you can talk to the person face to face.
It also devours your time faster than standing in line at Disneyland during the Christmas season. At the very least, instant messaging eats up a few hours. At the most extreme, a chronic user not only loses sleep but also falls behind in classes as a result of spending quality time with his keyboard instead of with his books. A.I.M. can be counterproductive and even damaging.
A friend of mine deleted A.I.M. from his computer altogether because he thought it was an excessive waste of time and a breeding ground for gossip, among other things. One small step backward for time stamps, one giant leap forward for time management. It would take more than sheer willpower for an extreme user to do such a thing.
After an extended period of heavy usage, I decided to give up A.I.M. for a month. Depending on whom I told, this was either no big deal or the equivalent of quitting a five-pack-a-day cigarette habit cold turkey. It had started to disgust me when I saw people visit CLICS with an armful of books during finals week, only to sign onto A.I.M. Express as soon as they hit a computer.
If you really look into the impact of this seemingly harmless A.I.M. addiction, perhaps you will also see the detriment it causes. As for me, whenever I signed on, I knew I was gone. Four, five, six hours would pass. Besides academic troubles, I wasn’t doing too well spiritually or healthwise.
I may sound like was an anomalous case of A.I.M. madness, but believe me, I didn’t go on nearly as much as others I knew.
At first, quitting was difficult; the little yellow running man (the A.I.M. icon) would beckon me at the bottom of the screen. Just one click, and I’d be able to chat away with 150 buddies. Then I rediscovered that talking to people face to face was a lot easier to interpret than trying to differentiate between “”You’re stupid,”” and “”Haha!! U r so stupid! Hee!””
I finally invested time in those overpriced books that I bought and hadn’t glanced at before. I spent more time visiting people than checking away messages. I did feel a little more out of the loop, but hey — I wasn’t a slave to my computer.
I wish I could say that A.I.M. isn’t so controlling anymore. It is the nature of A.I.M. to be consuming. It’s just too easy to get caught up in chatting. It’s too easy to keep those buddies you met once and never, ever talk to on your list. It’s too easy to type whatever you want and hit “”Enter.”” And admittedly, I succumb to this ease more often than not.
However, I pose a challenge to all students out there who can be honest enough to admit that the prevalence of A.I.M. in college is not so healthy. Get away from your desktop and allow the California sunshine to once again bathe your now pasty-as-a-result-of-IMing-too-much body. Use your voice instead of your mouse. For once, sink out of aimlessness and sink into A.I.M.lessness. Heaven forbid, you might actually have a decent conversation.
