i'm feeling somewhat philosophical here, so bear with me...

i've written about this before, but i'm still baffled by how anti-social being online seems to have become for me. it's funny, i think i started really getting online for real (meaning more of a constant IM presence, consistently checking an email account, etc) around maybe '97-98ish, so a good 8 years ago. i used ICQ daily for a while, mostly talking to dallas-area teens i had met online (and typically ended up meeting in person) and fellow honda del sol enthusiasts. i was still using it when i moved to texas a&m in fall 2000, but when i got there i realized everybody used AOL IM instead, so i switched.

in college, people add buddies to their lists at the drop of a hat. you have a class with somebody or do a project together, they're on your list. i've seen people with 200 names on their list. with a good 50,000 young people in a 10 square mile radius, it makes sense to know a ton of people online.

after graduation, you really have no need to keep in touch with a good 90% of the people you talked to occasionally in college. personally, i trimmed down my buddy list down to nothing once i started working. i kind of just assumed that i'd meet people up at work and the buddy list would grow a bit more. the problem is, not that many people seem to really use IM like i thought they would. i don't know if it's just chance that i happen to be in a circle of friends who don't really use IM all that much or if it's actually true that people in their mid-20s don't use it that much.

it's kind of depressing. at this point i literally only converse with probably 4-5 people over IM. i guess i pictured a good 20 people online every night, keeping tabs on each other with away messages and such. it turns out everybody just uses their damn cell phones to connect with each other, which is fine, but kinda old-fashioned if you ask me.

consider this my rant of just wishing the world was as high-tech as i'd like it to be.

--j