Things I learnt from Google and Facebook Chat

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Online Chatting is like having a conversation with someone.There is same amount of investment of emotions, time and instead of voice you are belting out your thoughts on the chat window through a keyboard. Just like in a face to face chat there are some etiquettes and rules which need to be kept in mind on an online chat.


When I first started chatting way back in 2000, there were very few people who were into chatting and the people on my chat list was less than 10. The only person I chatted with on a regular basis at that time was my older sister who was living in USA. We did not need to follow any particular etiquettes, neither did we know any acronyms like LOL’s or ROFL. But we had fun chats which felt like actual conversations, we fought, laughed and shared our life.


These days with the explosion of internet in every corner of the world, my chat list is bursting at the seams. The rules have changed and chat etiquettes have been forgotten. Over the years, I have seen people  bend rules and forget the basic rules of any conversation.


These are some of the things I learnt over the years from google and facebook chat sessions:


1) I am so busy: It is fashionable these days not to respond immediately to anyone’s ping for an online chat. Take your time to answer when someone pings you, especially when you want to show the attitude ‘I am so busy’. This is especially irritating for others when your status says you are available to chat.


2) Not to update status: Be online on Gmail/Facebook/Yahoo and let your status declare to the world that you are as free as a bird. When someone pings you, you answer ‘In a meeting/training, cannot chat’. Let the other person feel like a fool for trying to start a conversation with you. After the meeting ignore the person who pinged you earlier, no need to offer an apology, if he wants to be in touch that sucker will ping again.


3) Chat Requests: Send chat invites to people but do not bother to connect with them even once after they have accepted your request. If you ignore them, it shows your superiority.


4)  No Sorry No Goodbye: When someone is chatting with you and you are bored , just stop answering, the person on the other end will wait for sometime for your response and then give up. Let him get pissed off, you can always give the excuse that you suddenly got so busy that you did not even have time to say goodbye(The same person is on your Facebook friends list and even if he/she  can see that you have been uploading  YouTube videos instead of completing the chat), it is just your choice you have no time or interest in other persons feelings. Saying sorry if you need to step away or goodbye when you end a conversation are all useless etiquettes.


5) Never ever be the first to ping someone, especially a friend you have lost touch with, cause that will show that you are so needy.  It shows you have nothing better to do than disturbing people who are so busy and hard at work to have a friendly chat.


6) Block off people you don’t like, but you can always unblock them when you want their help. After all everybody is selfish, you can be too.


7) Going in an offline mode or putting your status as busy when you do not want to be disturbed is so not fashionable. People will understand on their own when you do not respond and will not ping you again.


8) If you accidently get logged off mid conversation, you can conveniently forget that the other person is still waiting for your response and move on to updating twitter or watching a YouTube video. Especially when the other person is sharing a problem with you and you have to actually read it, also when you do not get a chance to turn the conversation in your direction and make the other person listen to your problems.


9) You can completely ignore people you do not want to have a conversation with or if you are in a bad mood.


10) If you are pissed off about something the other person said use words like ‘Dude’, ‘Lady’ or ‘Babes’ and then verbally beat the crap out of them. These words all make it sound so nice and cultured.

I face such people on chat nearly everyday and I am left wondering ‘How can these people forget basic courtesy?’.  
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The thing is to remember that you can be as crude and rude as you want to be on a chat, after all the person on the other end is far far away and cannot show his anger or shout back at you.


There are absolutely no rules to follow and if someone gets offended he can very well go fly a kite. Who needs real breathing humans with emotions  as friends when you can be happy tending to your virtual farm/fish/cafe and updating your facebook status with philosophical proverbs or stalk people on Facebook.





P.S: Please feel free to add to this list if I might have missed something. It could become a guide for newbie chat users. 


I have written this post in jest. This is not targeted at any particular person. If you feel bad that you have done these things to me on chat you can purge yourself by tweeting this post :P

Comments

  1. Me first? Or is moderation on?

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  2. Yay! me 1st :D

    This is such a bang on post! One thing that irritates me a lot is keeping the busy status on and still chat nineteen to dozens! For God Sake what are ppl wanting to prove by showing a busy icon?

    I have a fren who never used to respond immediately! It was so damn irritating ki I can not tell you!

    I also hate random chats! I mean with ppl who don't know me!

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  3. blocking and unblocking ppl is very fasionable these days... there was this time when I was visible on Gtalk and was jugglinkg between 5-6 ppl... which was getting very hectic and I decided to log off so bid good bye to every1 and logged off... my frnd started laughing... he said y the hell do u have to log off, just block the person for sometime... he will think ur net is giving problems and will forget... i so hate this kind of an attitude... really pissed me off....

    I used to love chatting whn I was in college but then life was wasy to handle then.... now that things are busy, I prefer keeping invisible mode or offline and come online only if I wanna chat will someone...

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  4. Although I liked the post and found it interesting, but I must say, "Not one of your best."

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  5. This is good advice, LP. I have come across most of these situations. Chats go wrong every time I have them with my friends. We speak like aliens and it takes us ten minutes to reply. Most of what we speak doesn't make much sense. Though, we keep doing it! LOL

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  6. Oh dear I feel so guilty....

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  7. Super-duper post, LP! Could completely relate to all your points... And wow, you are chatting since 2000! That's like 10 years!! Amazing!!

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  8. Oh my, this is an absolute eye opener! I love all these etiquettes. Unfortunately, I only have a handful of people on my ping list. Must add some more just so I could practice some of these rules!

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  9. LOL!! I know who inspired rather irritated you!! ;)

    Well, I will tell her to behave herself and observe good manners when chatting with you!! ;)

    Cheers :)

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  10. Your points are so real. I too face such situations in my life, few people are like that. Nowadays I stopped pinging.

    Nice points and nice post. I liked the way you presented your thoughts.

    cheers,
    Vrinda.

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  11. yikes, I have done some of these things:-) I used to block people but now I am upfront and reject friend request/chat request.. Its my life and I am not interested in chatting with you..

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  12. And then there is this D-word i.e, DC or Disconnected - a convenient term to tell people when you get buzy with other chats people or other work :P

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  13. This is how our society and culture is changing. It is not restricted to chats it is crept in everyday life as well. Insensitivity is often attributed to lack of time.

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  14. My yahoo messenger consists of people from my high school whom I would choose to ignore or nosy relatives who have too much time on their hands.
    As a rule I'm always invisible, and choose to chat with only those I want to.
    Besides the most irritating part about chatting is when you have to chat with two or three ppl at a time coz u forgot to be stay invisible and now have to chat with cartloads of ppl!!!!

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  15. For a non chatter like me, all this is news. Thank You for showing me this side of life.

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  16. I have to echo what Purba is saying:You made me feel guilty.
    Actually even 2 years back I liked chatting a lot...or let's say chatting with a particular person.
    But now I've started hating messengers. I seldom use gtalk owing to the fact that people ping me all the time. And I find it very difficult to converse with 5 people at the same time.
    I'd rather have a heart-to-heart talk with only 1 person.
    It's amazing how the internet and social media have made interacting with strangers so easy. That's one advantage of IM-ing.

    P.S: I've blocked lotsa people simply coz they're annoying :P

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  17. I don't chat with unknown people. And yeah, there have been times when I've chatted with friends, but then calls / kids interrupt and I've had to excuse myself. Looks like people are forgetting etiquettes not just in the virtual community but in real life too!

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  18. LOL...I guess I'm one of the culprits...:)No excuses- just been extra busy, as the first point says...overall,it's surely an overdose of the info explosion that causes the sudden lack of time for most people..the 'yeh karoon ki woh karoon' syndrome,as I'm going to call it in a coming post....sometimes,I wish we were back in the days of snail mail-good ole Indian Post..sheer bliss- you could always blame the poor ole postman and postmaster for losing ur letters.:)

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  19. I generally block people who irritate me every time they chat with me. :( I can't help it.
    But nice post... every point is so true....!!!

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  20. Hahaha, I'm still laughing...Connect every address you have to Buzz, to keep your Buzz buzzzzzing so much that people wonder how you have more hours than them.. ;)

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  21. Aiyyo! Guilty as charged! Only on some accounts, not all! ;)
    Hilarious post this was! Congrats on the BlogAdda pick! :)

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  22. i actually stopped n thot if i did this anytime .. except stopped replying wen i wanted a convo to end, m clean for rest !!

    good post :)

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  23. I wish there were 48 hrs in a day...I never get the time to chat!

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  24. Hilarious and information-packed at one go! I truly enjoyed it coz I am struggling to understand the same things that you mentioned and I wondered if something's wrong at my end...this post helped me understand that i'm actually fine:)For facebook users, I think courtesy is a word that is not always an essential one in their dictionary.

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  25. I don't chat these days... but long time ago I used to be called Orkut Queen :p and people then were a lot more couteous... they would respond even if they were busy and politely tell you so...
    nice pointers there... though I may also be in defaulter's list :)

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  26. I don't usually chat, but these irritants are also common etiquette,so they hold true. I think it is very rude to keep people waiting for you when you have logged out accidentally or deliberately. I used to chat a lot in 2000-01, when what you have written was true -- less chatters and the novelty of 'talking' at a fraction of ISD costs!

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  27. Yeh! Congrats to Laxmi too!

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  28. Well compiled. Been there, done that :) I myself am guilty of some of them and had been on the receiving end of many of these, that too, when I dont chat much !!!

    Congrats on the blogadda pick :)

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  29. I have been guilty of some of these things and like others have said, been on the receiving end of it. Live and learn is all I say ;)

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  30. Hi lazy pineapple! nice name! i am a new reader of urs, found u on indiblog. u have a lovely blog and btw this post is wonderful. U know i am also a victim of such so called busy ppl. Its so irritating,i can understand that. Hope these guys learn some manners!

    nice post dear, i am following u.

    restless.

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  31. OMG! Vins your post made me see that I have been doing so many of these things without actually realising how bugging they are..wow an eye opener indeed.

    ReplyDelete

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