Block Instant Messaging

There was a time when “chatting” actually meant chatting, but these days it’s almost synonymous with online instant messaging. Chatting isn’t just between a couple people in close proximity anymore—as long as you’re near an internet connection you can chat with practically anyone in the world. Instant messaging also doesn’t have the demands of real life conversation because you’re allowed to let your attention drift. People can multitask while chatting, and they usually do. They can check e-mail, surf the internet, talk on the phone, or play games, and every so often they’ll check the chat box and respond with a delayed IM, and then turn their attention back to whatever else they were doing. Instant messaging has effectively eliminated awkward pauses from social interaction.

But chatting has its vices, which instant messenger users soon realize. Some find it sad that people don’t have as much face to face interaction as they used to. Facial cues are no longer a part of communication except in the form of emoticons, so sometimes things can get misinterpreted or misrepresented. Also, while people can distract themselves from IMing, IMing itself can also be a distraction. Many people are obligated to block instant messaging at work or they self impose it, which usually isn’t as effective.

There’s also the issue of who you’re chatting with. Anyone is able to chat with you as long as they have your screen name, which sometimes results in interactions with people you’d rather not talk to. A common way to solve this problem is to block instant messaging from that person by putting their screen name on your block list. It used to be that you would get a notification that you were blocked when you tried to IM someone, which led to much awkwardness, but now you can make it so blocked users can never tell that you’re online, so when you block instant messaging it just looks like you’re not on when they are. However, this could become a sticky situation if you have user friends in common. If you’re conversing with a friend while blocking someone else, your friend might accidentally let it slip to the blocked user that they’re IMing with you when it looks like you’re not on. That’s another super awkward situation.

Some other ways to avoid interactions with certain people is to switch to conventional forms of communication, to avoid them physically, or to straight out tell them how you feel instead of just trying to block instant messaging from them, but these could all be just as awkward. When you think about it, fending off undesirable people is an awkward situation in general and it’s a problem way bigger than instant messaging.