Digital Milestone #5

Chat and Instant Messaging (IM) software has revolutionized on how we communicated on the Internet. This is an efficient way in communicating on the computer without knocking out the phone line. People uses these technologies now in everyday life to communicate with family and friend where normally they wouldn't.

However with every new advancement there is always drawbacks. If you have multiple people who are trying to discuss an issue using chat then the one with the fastest typing hands usually dominates the chat since this is a very fast system that if you don't keep up you'll get left behind. This is similar to IM. Also there might be some time involved in trying to type out your answer and the person might interpret this as you're no longer interested in the conversation. Chat and IM is still relatively young and the older generation is still not use to using it.

Chat and IM are currently being used in reference services at libraries, and alternative to video or conference calls. However the organizations that do deploy this software need to regulate it for it can be very easily abused. So as technologies improve, there will always be drawbacks. I think the ultimate what to do long range communications is what they do with Star Trek and their long range visual subspace communication system.

http://www.aim.com/