And now, a preview of your Finals Week productivity:
"Too much to do."
"Homeworking."
"Off to take over the world."
"WORKKK."
"Whoa what a wonderful thing to brag ... Cause I've got him where I want him now."
"Around ..."
"This is my December."
"Too much to do."
"Home, finally."
"1 stinking point, you have to be joking."
"My imagination is my worst enemy ..."
Confusing as hell out of context, those are genuine AIM away/status messages snatched from my buddy list earlier this week. Not horribly amusing via this form of delivery. Yet those textual essences of digital life will serve as the greatest challenge to cramming - err, studying - next week. That is of course, alongside Facebook. Make that MySpace if you're trying to get laid.
Curse you, away messages. I can't help but look. I must know! And once I do, I must continue to carelessly waste time by checking again and again until my friends sign off or, AIM running man forbid, come back from away.
By now you've likely pondered what your away message says at this very moment. Or if you know me you're likely wondering why I had to pull that message out of the entire artillery you have. To that I say at least I didn't wait until you came back from a night of heavy drinking.
We attempt to use these AIM and Facebook quick text displays to portray emotion and feeling. No longer are they about what we're doing - it's about how we're feeling. These messages are our digital faces, the skin of our cyber personas.
Problem is we're emotion-impaired in cyberspace. Emoticons can't replace body expressions and tone. We've yet to see a, "Go f--- yourself," emoticon. We won't either.
That's probably related to the Patriot Act.
Count silently the number of times you've changed an away message right after putting one up. Now look at the person next to you. Yeah, they've done it, too. Maybe it wasn't witty enough, or maybe you really were hoping someone would read it.
We're all guilty of away message assault. Bitter, sad, raging with anger: all emotions driving us to switch from saying, "At the library," to lyrics from The Fray or, on those really bad nights, Good Charlotte.
It's not all about being a depressive emo child. We use these messages to flirt, too. We'll target particular updates to an individual, alienating, well, everyone else.
"... SEE - I MADE YOU DO IT! lol jk ;) J !! hehe. :-O"
This is, frankly, awkward for everyone else checking your away message. Outsiders to this inside joke are left saying, "OMG," feeling like they've walked in on the middle of a sex scene.
It's somewhat likely those two away message lovebirds made the "next step" using AIM. According to a mid-November AOL/Associated Press poll, 43 percent of teens (age 13 to 18) said they use IMs for things they wouldn't normally say in person. Thirteen percent of teens end their relationships with IM, while 22 percent start them there. I suppose that's after they've flirted on MySpace for four days and 10 messages.
Our obsessions with each other have overthrown our addiction to porn in terms of site hit counts. Social networking ranks first among the 18- to 24-year-old demographic, an Oct. 31 Time article said, citing data with monitoring company Hitwise. Porn was fourth.
Search engines and Web-based e-mail fill the second and third slots, respectively, the article said. In fair disclosure, some industry researchers argue the methodology of the Hitwise data, but I venture to say few of us argue with the findings.
The stats confirm that we really want people to know what we're doing. Then we go and throw some hilarious YouTube link up like it's the best thing since "Boom Goes the Dynamite," and then we've failed to do our job of stating why we're away in the first place.
As well-read college students, it's not uncommon to express ourselves using the words of a legendary poet, theorist or political dignitary like Mark Twain, Albert Einstein or Stephen Colbert. When the going gets tough, the tough get quoting.
We feel the need to keep people updated as much as we feel the need to be updated. There's the "Out ... Call/txt me," message - as if that wouldn't be our next logical step.
But there won't be need to talk, text or the likes for the next eight days - it's final exam time. So grab your books and laptop and head to Bracken Library for some intense studying. And when that effort fails miserably due to cyber distraction, at least you'll have learned that everyone else is struggling, too.
If they updated properly, that is.
Write to Dave atheydave@bewilderedsociety.com
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