Commenting

It wasn't so long ago that if you wanted to communicate something to another person, you simply had to talk to them. The telephone helped to eliminate the need to be in the same geographical location as that other person. And if talking wasnt an option you could always write a letter.

Mobile phones introduced us to expressions like "text me" and skype created the new verb "to skype", and recently I noted with interest that my youngest teenage daughter was talking about "commenting" her freinds. I enquired further and have learnt that there a whole new world of communicating has evolved.

I thought that when she was on the computer "talking" with freinds that she was using MSN messenger to IM "instant message" (theres another new communication activity), but i now learn that MSN is old hat.... now "we comment each other in MySpace"
MySpace aparently doesnt have an IM feature, so freinds leave comments for each other and converse back and forth from there.

Now, on one hand this seems mad to me. Why dont they use MSN IM if they want to talk? But on the other hand i rather like this idea - it gives people time to reflect on a previous comment and time to think about thier "thoughtful" response.
If only people would take that thinking time in thier real-time conversations, it might just be the case that misunderstandings could be a thing of the past