Where is it all going to end

I participated (or tried to) in an instant messaging (hereafter IM) online discussion for a course I was doing. It was all over the place. You could be just about to reply when somebody either says what you were going to OR changes the topic. Short and sweet seems to be the key but it's difficult if you're supposed to be arguing/ debating/ giving an informed opinion about something (unless you want to be devil's advocate and just type "BAH" or "Rubbish" for everything).

I sometimes find IM tough because of the awkward silences (yes, i think they do exist in IM) and the signing off. It's a little bit - "you hang up", "no you hang up" or playing who-gets-the-last-word/ emoticon. You could be there all night with your "bye", "bye", "talk soon", "ok", "ok then" etc...

I've used, MSN IM but not too much because that's not where my peeps are at. Skype is probably the one I use most frequently. Sometimes it's better than ringing if the connection is bad.