Hi, my name is Ashley, and I have a problem. I’m addicted … to instant messaging. I am obsessed with it. I usually don’t go a day without it, and if I do I can admit to feeling like I was deprived of something.

I know that nerds exist out there just like me who sit hopelessly glued to computers, waiting for their friends to come online so they can talk to them or gladly interrupt whatever constructive project they were working on once that little window pops up. Well, fellow nerds, this is for you: Here’s a look at how instant messaging has negatively affected basic communication.

How did we communicate before the Internet and instant messaging? I seriously don’t know. If you are like me, when you got to college and discovered the bountiful joys of Ethernet (being connected 24/7 ) and found out you could chat with five people at a time for hours, you did just that — and drunk instant messaging comes in at a close second to the drunk dial.

According to www.howstuffworks.com, instant messaging exploded in 1996 with the introduction of ICQ, a play on the words “I seek you.” Programs like MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and AOL Instant Messenger quickly followed, and by 2002, 60 million college students became habitual users.

For obvious reasons, college students are easy candidates for instant messaging compulsion, due to their social habits and accessibility to the Internet. College Internet users are twice as likely to use instant messaging services on any given day than the average Internet user, according to a study done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. On a typical day, 26 percent of college students use instant messaging.

I am not arguing against the apparent social benefits of such a means of communication: It bridges the gap between friends and acquaintances far away, making them more accessible and eliminating costly phone bills. Instant messaging also promotes frequent communication, leaving less room for isolation and loneliness.

But what instant messaging also does is replaces traditional person to person communication, communication defined by every intonation, facial expression, and body movement. Researchers fear “friends and co-workers are losing the warmth of personal interaction, and [instant messaging] will cause us to further neglect the power of personal cues — the winks, nods, and voice tones that give nuance to our dialogue.” I fear this, too, because I can see it happening to many people, myself included.

When you talk to a person one on one, you see every detail, every color. You can read them by their facial expressions and body language. With instant messaging, you get a small 5×5 inch box with your choice of 54 colors and about that many fonts on a computer screen. The only thing you have to interpret is written text, and the only emotions are expressed through “emoticons,” or facial expressions condensed into a few carefully placed characters on the keyboard, or the actual writing of the words like *sigh*.

Another report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found 37 percent of young instant message users have used the service to say something they would not have said to someone’s face. Another 57 percent have blocked someone they didn’t want to talk to during an argument. Imagine doing that during a real argument — being able to physically put up a wall is impossible.

I remember a lengthy argument I had over AOL instant messenger one night. When we discussed the quarrel the next day, we realized we both had formed different perceptions of how the conversation had gone because we filled in those blanks in our mind with our own perceptions.

Have you ever heard anyone describe a conversation they had over the Internet? They explain it as if it had happened face-to-face, although I’m sure both parties would have many different insights as to the circumstances of what was said and how it was said.

Students are now using instant messages to talk to people because we are too lazy to walk down the hall or climb a flight of stairs (I am very guilty of this — my roommate and I message each other when nightly when we are in our rooms). More than 19 percent of students instant message people in the same dorm, and 65.7 percent do so to people in other dorms.

In conclusion, instant messaging has become a favorite pastime of time and the majority of college students. I just hope it will not replace personal communication in the future.