Does Instant Messaging Really Keep Us in Touch?

I have a lot of friends. I am 28 years old, have lived in many different cities and have met many different people along the way. Some have impacted my life in a positive way, some haven't but all in all they are still friends. I try to keep up with what is going on in their lives, but in this fast paced world, sometimes that isn't so easy. I sign in to MSN Messenger and thirty seconds later I have 30+ "what's up"s to deal with. In an attempt to keep my sanity, I respond with the generic "nothin u?" to most and that in most likelihood, regardless if they respond or not, is all I ever write. That's the end of the conversation.

I have good friends that I will actually carry a conversation with, but in most cases I just say the old, notorious one line response, "I see."

You see, "I see" fits so many responses in so many ways. You can say it in response to anything from "I got into an accident last night," to "my dog died" and it works. It is almost like saying "tell me more" if it is a long story or "I understand and have nothing to add" for others. In reality I don't have anything too add, because I didn't read the response; I just skimmed it. I get messages many times similar to "I thought we were doing something last night" and I, 99% of the time respond with "oh yeah sorry, got tied up" when in reality I have no clue to what they are referring to. I also get invites to parties and such from people I can’t even remember adding to my buddy list. I usually say "we'll see," but even if I wanted to go, how would I get the info? Could you imagine the call "hey whoever you are, let’s meet up then go to this party at what's his name's place"? Even if I got all the info online, how would I know who actually invited me once I got there?

I sometimes wonder if they even know who I am. I wonder why they would think I would know what happened to some guy they are friends with, or why I should even care, but I get "did you here what happened to (fill in any old name) last night?" I usually respond with "no, I didn't," and then three or four messages of some story that makes absolutely no sense to me follows. Then comes the perennial favorite "I see."

I really don't want to come off sounding cold, but really I don't/didn't care. How could I? I don't even know the person I am chatting with, so I have a hard time caring about his/her, little sister/brother’s friend whose cousin’s aunt did so and so or such and such.

My good friends are a different story—obviously—but in some ways it is the same. If they live in a different city and they start telling me something about a friend’s friend, that knows this guy, who knows this girl, who did something, I could care less. Sometimes it is humorous and good for a laugh, but most times it is incomplete leaving out details I guess they think I should know, and all garbled into some short form of what happened, so once again "I see."

That brings me back to my original question, am I really keeping in touch?

I have an answer but it’s complicated. So complicated I would lose you 2 lines into my explanation, so I won't bother. I would rather just ask you a question instead. Well maybe a couple. This way I can maybe elaborate on my own conclusion.

1. Is talking online keeping in touch, even if you have no clue who it is you are talking too?
2. Do you have people on your list that talk to you frequently, yet you have no idea how you know them?
3. Does it bother you that you can't get any work done because of all the incoming messages, yet you remain online and continue chatting?
4. Have you ever blocked people you don't know, and then felt bad about it?
5. Do you continue to still add new contacts even though the little noise an incoming message makes drives you crazy?
6. Do you put up a message for your user name, telling everyone on your list about something, than get annoyed you have to keep explaining it over and over again?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, than you may understand how I feel. If you answered no to all, you are lying.

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