My chatting days are over! Are yours?...

[Shastah]

I have a Facebook page, but only because it seems just about everyone else has one. I don't use Facebook for much else. The Twitter bug hasn't bitten me yet. When I describe to my 17 year old nephew that mobile phones, sms, facebook, twitter and the like were science fiction when I was his age, his eyes light up with that "how did you survive" look

[mizwizzy]

Twitter is one thing I find most disgusting: following a person w/o the possibility of interaction. It's creepy to me, like a peeping Tom that you enjoy.

I think forums, emails are the way to go for me. If I want to chat with somebody, then Skype video/audio seems to me the perfect choice. There were times when SciFi movies depicted systems like Skype like an advance of our civilization, and I'm leaning towards that.

SMS and IMs, Twitter and FB are to me more voyeristic rather than a healthy honest interaction. That's why I prefer to call, rather than SMS-ing, and I rather not twitter as I like to hear what others have to say, since the feedback is what makes us go on-line. Sitting alone in an upholstered white cell having cameras watching your every move means also that you have followers of your own!

- I find Twitter the same, it's too broad ranging for me and generalised. I find it hard to connect with and I'm not one of those "you follow me and I'll follow you" individuals - I follow those I'm interested in and what I find enjoyable to read but when you get these new followers it is indeed a tad bit creepy I must agree

Forums & emails yes - I think there is more substance to this method of communication rather than IM-ing - I at least think so anyways. I think I just find it more enjoyable and worthwhile rather than real time nowadays! Skype...Hmm I must say, I do like this messenger, I never used to like it at all - I prefer to voice chat myself too - it's more me than typing I guess.

Don't get me started on SMS - I used send text messages alot aswell - that has also stopped just like the chatting but I think that's primarilly down to all this txt talk shortcut stuff - I can't abide by it, if someone sends me something with abbreviated text, they'll never hear back from me it's just obnoxious to me and overall I think it's already having a negative affect on young people, their grammar is awol!

Maybe it's just the novelty of the new technologies that grabs our attention at first, but only lasts so long before the effect wears. I think our vocal cords are, by far, the most impressive communication technology we have to date and most people never grow tired of talking! Now, who sets that aside for weeks/months at a time? Mine are fired up and ready to go from sun-up to sun-down!

I agree, voice chat is my favourite form of communication online It's just fun and friendly and you can really get to know someone really quickly - there's personality that you can actually pick up on and instead of "lol"-ing you can actually laugh - nothing beats the old fashioned way IMO

There are definitely different strata of users on twitter that use it in different ways, beyond it's original purpose as a micro blogging platform.

The strata of people that you are referring to don't really get it - latecomers to twitter, they've perhaps been drawn in by hype as it's spilled over into the mainstream media, and are using it as another unidirectional channel to be broadcasted to in the same way they soak up nonsense and tittle tattle from soaps, tabloids, daytime radio and chat shows. They don't contribute to the twitter community other than to raise the noise floor with what they had for lunch, and sooner or later end up following Steven Fry and get bored senseless, proclaim they don't get it and then leave

The more experienced users use it as a casual public conversational medium that doesn't need real-time interaction or direct connection like chat does, and where they have a loose network of like minded individuals with common interests, so the tweets they receive are useful and they can get involved in conversation.

I must admit I am a late comer to twitter - but that's attributed to a lack of interest, I knew what it was but it just wasn't my thing. I gave it a go last year and at first I was into it as I was using it for my own blog tweets but soon enough it got to a point where I was wondering what the point was - sure I was getting hits from there but *shrugs* is that all it's for? Sure, I followed people I was interested in following and hobbies I had, my favourite tech sites etc - but I then found I wasn't even visiting those sites anymore because I was reading their tweets instead So that was it for me, I just simply check it when I remember now

With that said, I never managed to get into Facebook. I don't know why, I just haven't a clue what to do with it. Not my cup of tea, but then again, I often wonder whether it's not inevitable that I do at least superficially get into it because more and more clients ask for Facebook features, a service I'm extremely reluctant to provide. So far, I've gotten away with it and only had to do very minor tweaks of existing Facebook pages. I don't know. Haven't really made up my mind on whether it's dumb or the right thing to do to simply ignore a venture that relates to my current profession.

As for chatting...I've never been a chatter. I find small talk a difficult thing to do with people I don't really know well. I love to be silly and "chatty" with people I am close to, but other than that, no. Email is better, or Skype and Instant Messengers. Anything where you have the illusion of a private environment is the more comfortable zone for me, so I'm with Hazel on that one.

Whether it's an age thing...not too sure about that. The most avid and popular twitterers are a lot older than you or I, I noticed.

Yeah, FB and all it's mysteries - *sigh* - I don't know, it's a love hate relationship for me I think - Like twitter I also was a late comer to FB, I got addicted to the games but that soon wore off and I got bored with that (of course as I was beating everyone) - but yeah, I think what bugs me most is that there are so many social networking sites now, you have to be on all of them really otherwise you're missing out or something and that annoys me really - I'm the same as you with regard to the "illusion of privacy" - I like being in control of who I talk to and communicate with, whereas those sites are just too big and saturated with people it's very off-putting

Yes ages do differ of course, perhaps it's just me then, I'm just changing as a person and my interests are having to adapt to that - but I wonder if those who do tweet now that are of an older generation are new to the web in general and that's why they are so much into twitter because it's just a natural thing to get into now?

The big thing was MSN and ICQ messenger when I was in college. Now it's more towards skype and VoIP, and many use Skype in a professional/business sense. I know many who still use MSN, but it's all business for me, ICQ has certainly died down.

I used to use ICQ for several hours and chat to god-knows-who about world affairs. It was far easier to find people on ICQ than it is now.

ICQ - well that's a blast from the past - I remember "eh-oh" when you got a message or the "knock" on the door when a friend logged on - I used ICQ when I first started on the web wayyy back! I stopped using it when it got more spammy than anything else but I've no idea what it's like now. It was actually quite nice overall though for an IM program.

I always struggle with online chats... except for this forum and an occasional facebook message, I don't do chat at all.

I use e-mail to communicate. From time to time, maybe skype or msn. It is nice if you have to solve something quickly and it is fun but I simply don't have the time. I envy those people that have the time to do everything. No matter how I try or I organize myself, I always need more hours. So chatting is not a priority in my life.

Twitter is something that amazes me. I simply don't get it. But I do have an account there and I tweet like once per semester or so

Yeah Nuria, it's the same for me - the thought of spending hours chatting nowadays would send me into a manic depression - jeeze, I just couldn't do it! When I think back to all those hours of sitting at the computer chit chatting with friends and online gaming, scrabble, chess, poker and pool tournaments jeeze - I wonder how I did it

[sg707]

Yup~ it was fun during the teen years but the only time I'm chat is on Online Support Chat (Amazon for example). Still more convenient than calling or e-mailing.

[php_daemon]

I never was into chatting - most of the time people would just talk to me, and I'd just respond. Some chats can be productive, that's why I still keep one instant messenger online. Granted there hasn't been much activity lately. In general, it's quite a time hog and I've always preferred non-real time communication like email or forums.

In Facebook, I sometimes log-in to play poker, otherwise there aren't many productive things I can do.

Twitter is a fun little thing, though. I rarely tweet myself but I follow some interesting people who have interesting things to say. Most often it's a link to an interesting blog post, news or something else. For instance, yesterday I've found kohoutek's tweet about this cool program that renders the screen in "color blind" colors. Usually I'm too lazy to find these things myself and here you get them in a few seconds from people with similar interests to yours.

I also find work related tweets a good motivator.

[megamanXplosion]

I used to chat all the time, but I have stopped almost completely. It seems that people are getting stupider every year. With the passing of each year, the percentage of cliches, soundbites, misrepresentations, and other forms of nonsense grows, as well as the volume of the insistence that you do the same.

If you give relevant information or chain of reasoning, then either they pretend not to understand -- at least, I like to think they are pretending so I can avoid the more depressing thought that they really are as stupid as they make themselves appear to be -- or they reply with something like "TL;DR (too long; didn't read)", to which I always respond, "TS;WB (too stupid; won't bother)".

It has gotten to the point where chatting with people is not even an enjoyable waste of time. Nowadays, I stick to the places where some amount of intellectualism is expected.

[Sagewing]

I used to chat all the time, but I have stopped almost completely. It seems that people are getting stupider every year. With the passing of each year, the percentage of cliches, soundbites, misrepresentations, and other forms of nonsense grows, as well as the volume of the insistence that you do the same.

If you give relevant information or chain of reasoning, then either they pretend not to understand -- at least, I like to think they are pretending so I can avoid the more depressing thought that they really are as stupid as they make themselves appear to be -- or they reply with something like "TL;DR (too long; didn't read)", to which I always respond, "TS;WB (too stupid; won't bother)".

It has gotten to the point where chatting with people is not even an enjoyable waste of time. Nowadays, I stick to the places where some amount of intellectualism is expected.

Where would that be? I want to know where the non-stupider people hang out.

[mcd]

I don't chat anymore. At least not in public settings and very rarely in private one-on-one scenarios. I have a couple of clients who will occasional Skype instant message me, but I'm not on AIM anymore and don't frequent any other chat venues. Not sure it's an age thing or chatting in general is starting to fall out of fashion.

[Bayliss Trevor]

I use skype a lot for work but I have made a conscious effort to CALL using skype NOT CHAT using text via skype. Try it! It means that things get sorted out a lot quicker and you can also see the person's screen in realtime. I don't like windows live messenger as the interface and functionality isn't as good as skype. I know a few people who ONLY use windows live messenger, very annoying as you have to login to another account to speak to them and if you are in hotmail an annoying chat window comes up if they want to chat to you. HTHs

[bulevardi]

TICQ has certainly died down.

O-ow !

ICQ, where was the time ! At least 11 years ago that I still used that program.

[mizwizzy]

....Twitter is a fun little thing, though. I rarely tweet myself but I follow some interesting people who have interesting things to say. Most often it's a link to an interesting blog post, news or something else. For instance, yesterday I've found kohoutek's tweet about this cool program that renders the screen in "color blind" colors. Usually I'm too lazy to find these things myself and here you get them in a few seconds from people with similar interests to yours.

I also find work related tweets a good motivator.

I agree with you Saul with regard to finding things fast via Twitter, even things you never thought you would be interested in that your friends post - it can be fun yes of course but do you use it to communicate about those tweets or is it just another way to surf the web? I find myself clicking away but not really communicating, unless it's a book I've read or an article that's just brilliant and I want to tweet the author or find out more etc - but more over it doesn't really motivate me to chat more

I used to chat all the time, but I have stopped almost completely. It seems that people are getting stupider every year. With the passing of each year, the percentage of cliches, soundbites, misrepresentations, and other forms of nonsense grows, as well as the volume of the insistence that you do the same.

If you give relevant information or chain of reasoning, then either they pretend not to understand -- at least, I like to think they are pretending so I can avoid the more depressing thought that they really are as stupid as they make themselves appear to be -- or they reply with something like "TL;DR (too long; didn't read)", to which I always respond, "TS;WB (too stupid; won't bother)".

It has gotten to the point where chatting with people is not even an enjoyable waste of time. Nowadays, I stick to the places where some amount of intellectualism is expected.

I had to laugh reading this post! I tend to think like that too especially with some of the younger crowd I know, conversing struggles to the 2 minute mark nevermind that they're texting nonstop while you're talking to them and no doubt using SMS text abbreviations It is scary though when you think about it, how technology can stunt growth and personality

I use skype a lot for work but I have made a conscious effort to CALL using skype NOT CHAT using text via skype. Try it! It means that things get sorted out a lot quicker and you can also see the person's screen in realtime. I don't like windows live messenger as the interface and functionality isn't as good as skype. I know a few people who ONLY use windows live messenger, very annoying as you have to login to another account to speak to them and if you are in hotmail an annoying chat window comes up if they want to chat to you. HTHs

Yes exactly - I used to use MSN for a long time but since I've stopped chatting I only have Skype - I did happen to try the new MSN but I think it's OTT and not as good as some of the older versions.

The thing with voice chatting on Skype is that not everyone who may be on your listing wants to voice chat, some prefer text based interaction so it's sort of difficult to go exclusively to voice chatting only!

[dagaul101]

I think it's a symptom of getting older, other priorities take over

[Shaun(OfTheDead)]

I started getting sick of being "connected" all the time.

My chatting days are done too.

[jaydeee]

same here.
for me because I'm busy doing other things, these days i usually call to get immediate response.

[dojo]

I've never actually chatted. When I was way younger I'd post in the forums, it was better than have my replies "deleted" once the chat session was done. I can still find my "genius" posts years after, maybe that's why I love forum posting.

I'd chat for minutes with my family, when I'm far from home or give a design client some tips to handle the site. We meet for few minutes on skype and do our talking. Otherwise, for me it's a waste of time.

[JREAM]

It all kind of reminding me of red heads how they change their mind a lot but get older and their hair really turns brown. So when you chat, you get tired of it because you getting older and maturer so you dont want to get talked at all day.

[pappukumar]

Hi,

I don't think so there is no end of chating. chating over when this site like face book,twitter is over.

[mizwizzy]

It all kind of reminding me of red heads how they change their mind a lot but get older and their hair really turns brown.

I've no idea what you're talking about here

[Sagewing]

Chatting is on the decline. Facebook and sites like it are growing. Twitter will drift into obscurity over time.

[once janister]

I used to be on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) constantly. Now I have no use for it. I use mainly Twitter and Forums to interact with other people in the Blogopsphere.

[wardcosbyson]

I'm still kind of struggling, an yes, chatting has been one of my time wasters and would like to end this very counterproductive habit.

[AnniceSmith]

In my personal opinion to have proper communication through online medium is chat a definately the way to go for as it , if I don't care about immediacy of response then may be i go for Facebook or any social networking site in online medium.

[cpvr]

I started getting sick of being "connected" all the time.

My chatting days are done too.

Dang, and you're a great chatter as well. :P

[mindlesswizard]

Wow ! Quite Interesting Posts and Interesting People. My chatting days are over too

[guido2004]

I chat with friends and family that are 2000km away. Or even better, we talk and see eachother via Skype.
I also chat (and call, and email) with collegues about work.
I've never chatted with strangers just for the fun of chatting, and I don't think I'll ever do.

[wardcosbyson]

I have a Facebook page, but only because it seems just about everyone else has one. I don't use Facebook for much else. The Twitter bug hasn't bitten me yet. When I describe to my 17 year old nephew that mobile phones, sms, facebook, twitter and the like were science fiction when I was his age, his eyes light up with that "how did you survive" look

I actually like it more. Of course the internet and other mobile devices today are helping us big time with just about anything. Ha, we are all making money online through the internet and by using a bunch of communication systems. But then, life before was more simple. I get in touch with my extended family members and friends more often than today-being with them in person that is.