Yesterday marked the arrival of facebook chat and it has got me thinking about what this mean for me and its users in the future. At first i was pretty mesmorised by it all. All of a sudden i knew when i have a notification without checking my email. I can also chat to my many friends who are online at the same time as me.

Then i began to become worried and here is why. I tend to leave facebook open in a tab. All of a sudden my window starts flashing when i get a message. This results in me switching to it and ending up in another conversation being distracted from what im doing. I tend to look at it during my coffee break at work so now this coffee break is slowly creeping longer in duration unwillingly. The second aspect is i get conversations reminiscent of those that made me stop using msn back in the dark ages in the first place..


This is an example of the ultimate worthless distraction - a conversation that is not going anywhere. This was the reason i began using facebook. I liked the way i could reply to messages in my own time. Communicate when it suited me. I liked the way every wallpost and message had some sort of point to it.

Now if I get a message from a friend I feel i have to respond instantly so as not to appear rude no matter what I'm doing it whether it be facebook stalking or trying to get some presentation done. If im on for a quick session before bedtime i may now feel obliged to stay on longer and converse whilst wishing i could just go to bed and looking for a "way out" of that conversation.

Sure there are good aspects to it. For some reason I'm now getting lots of instant messages from people i havent heard from in a while engaging in small talk that wouldnt normally be worthy of a message or a wall post.

And how will work take this? Will they see it as a distraction now and look to ban it? My company is much more accommodating of Facebook then others seeing true benefit in bringing people together. Will this change their opinion on it? Will they think it's a welcome addition? Time will tell.