Livejournal Chat Mode

[jeffreyab]

Something I have noticed recently is that people often end up chatting on Livejournal.

By this I mean you see a long string of one or two sentence messages that go back and forth between two people exchanging messages.

I myself have done it a few times as someone has just pointed out.

My questions are:

Is this a good or bad thing?

What could be the reasons behind it?

What are the alternatives given that most people have incompatible messengers?

Finally what role does chatting play in your social life?

Is it a prime form of communication or something you use rarely?

Comments

Trying to answer . . .

[padhopper.livejournal.com]

I have never really developed an opinion on it.

I would assume the reason is because they don't have each other in an IM buddy list.

Chatting plays A role but it is not the ONLY role. I mean, I do have friends in real life. But it is helpful to keep in contact with people that live a distance. Phone calls are expensive.

[misshannah.livejournal.com]

Well, I was guilty of this very thing, in this very journal. So, sorry! :)

I chat online infrequently and with a small group of people, most of whom I know in real life and/or live near me..so it seems like I use it more for quick messages when it's convenient, in lieu of the phone.

I do also chat with family and a few special long distance/internet friends.

[corbet.livejournal.com]

Good? Bad? [shrugs]

The times when this happens to me, it's usually spontaneous. Someone says something, I respond, and next thing you know the thread is 10+ comments long. But we didn't anticipate that, so we didn't switch to a chat client.

Other thoughts...commenting gets around time lags, when people aren't at their computers at the same time.

Also, clients don't work for everyone. I can't chat from work, for instance, due to firewall issues. Even web clients don't seem to work properly.

Maybe because of this, I chat fairly rarely, and in a very focused way. I look to see if a specific person's online, and if so I drop them a line, and if not I sign off. But then, I don't spend all that much time in front of the computer once I get home. So in essence, chatting's a very minimal part of my social life, but I do have a couple friends who I wouldn't get to 'talk' to any other way.

Alternatives? E-mail, sms, phone, perhaps a private message board.

[cohen7.livejournal.com]

chatting via lj is ok - however, the lj must be owned by a participant in the conversation. so never should two people chat in someone else's lj. if someone receives a zillion e-mails confirming posts to their lj, and they turn out to be someone else's chatter, it's disappointing - not to mention, a pain in the ass.

and chatting does play an important role - there's a stigma surrounding the internet, but as long as you maintain so-called "real" relationships outside of the internet, i'd say chatting to someone you wouldn't usually talk to can offer a lot.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

It feels like the next evolution of chatting on an email list, or newsgroup -- not a new or strange thing to me.

[grace-040883.livejournal.com]

you and I do the one sentence thing. I used to chat alot, but not so much anymore as I'm around the computer less often. I prefer to send one liners back and forth because I'm a horrible conversationalist. :D