Instant Messaging and College Students

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Instant Messaging and College Students

In the past few years, technology has taken over our world. Our lives are flowing rapidly into a technology-based planet; can you remember a time when people did not walk around with a cell phone attached to their heads? Do you recall a time when you had to pull out the map book to find directions instead of heading over to www.mapquest.com? One of the newer technological devices to make its way into the United States, and especially into the lives of college students, is instant messenger. The question we must ask ourselves about instant messenger, a question we must ask about any new piece of technology is, does this creation benefit us or harm us? Instant messenger has many positive aspects, but when carefully weighing the good points against the bad one can conclude that instant messenger will overall negatively affect the typical college student.

Basic Information

What exactly is instant messenger? It is an online chatting service, which does not require a server, therefore giving direct and instant communication (Van Horn 653). One can chat with multiple persons at the same time if he or she desires. It was first developed in 1988 by a Finnish man and named Internet Relay Chat (Goldsborough 44). Its popularity has steadily increased since its development. In fact, in 1999, IDC, a technology market research firm in Massachusetts, predicted that its popularity would grow one hundred and forty percent in each of the next five years. This growth implies that by the year 2004 there will be over one hundred and eighty million instant messenger users (Goldsborough 44).

Positive Aspects

However, there are good and bad aspects to everything that is popular in societ...

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