January 2004

Parent to parent: Connect with instant messaging

By Mom Marion

Soon after I returned home from taking my son to college, I started e-mailing him. E-mail worked great with his older sister three years earlier, but to my surprise and disappointment, my son rarely answered. Had he forgotten about me?

The answer is no, but there was a problem. I was communicating in the wrong medium. I thought I was computer savvy, but I had, in fact, fallen behind.

The new generation of college students, especially freshmen, has adopted instant messaging. I'm not saying that every student prefers this medium, nor that your student wants to use it with you, but if you're intrigued by new means of communication, you could check it out.

When you do, you'll probably discover, as I did, that the mechanics are easy, but diplomacy is complicated.

The technology explained

Instant messaging is a method of communicating with people in real time. If your intended recipient is logged on, your message appears on his or her screen immediately. Conversation proceeds as fast as you can type.

When both people are online, either can initiate a conversation. If one person doesn't want to be disturbed, he or she can post an "away" message or simply sign off.

The speed of operation can be affected by personal behavior. Many students use instant messaging to converse with friends at their own college and all over the country, making it a shiny new tool for procrastination. If your student responds to you slowly, he or she could be doing homework, but it is more likely that your student is talking to several people at once.

Several Internet providers offer instant messaging via free download. I asked my son which company he uses and chose the same one.

Online diplomacy

Like phone and e-mail, instant messaging has protocols you will learn quickly. Parents tend to write weighty, paragraph-long messages, which clearly identify them as newbies.

One sentence (or less) per message is the norm. Abbreviations abound, even for words that are already short, like "k" for OK.

Even if your student has never mentioned instant messaging, chances are that he or she uses it with others. One freshman told me she uses snail mail with her grandparents, exchanges e-mail and phone calls with her parents, and sends instant messages to her siblings. When I asked how she would feel if her parents joined the instant-message crowd, she said, "Hmm. That means we could just say 'hey' to each other. Sounds nice."

Avoiding the pitfalls

I have discovered, however, that there are pitfalls to instant messaging. Here are a few tips:

• If you're online often, don't initiate a conversation every time. You can become a pest, and your student may change his or her screen name to avoid you.
• Don't use instant communication for deep, soul-searching messages. E-mail might not work either, because the instant-message generation doesn't check it often. Use the phone.
• It's fine to write, "How are things?" But don't ask pointed questions, especially ones like, "How did you do on the math test?" As one parent put it, "I don't want my daughter to think of IM as yet another source of parental nagging!"
• Don't force students to stay online longer than they want.
• Remember, it can be difficult to convey concern, pride or affection using typed, one-sentence messages, even if you become adept at punctuating with little, yellow smiley faces.

I still talk to my son once a week on a big, clunky, old-fashioned phone.

Newspaper columnist Marion Franck is the mother of two college students, a freshman and a senior. She has worked with UC Davis students as a lecturer.

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