In the past year or so, I've fallen from regular use of IM to communicate with friends. When you're at work, and the time you're wasting isn't really all your own. However, when my time is all my own, it seems like an inefficient form of communication - in the same time, you could have a much better phone conversation or write a heart-felt letter (granted, I fall short of making the phone calls and writing the letters that I should be). This situation is made worse by the formed habit of multi-tasking when having IM conversations, since the same interface with which you IM (i.e. the computer) is also a weath of distractions and procrastination.

For myself, most recently, I've been completely off of any sort of IM for the main reason that the network here at the center here in China is extremely restrictive. Recently, however, while I still have been unable to get AOL IM working, I have gotten Yahoo IM to work, as well as MSN IM, though MSN is a bit less stable, and tends to kick me off. The short of it - if you want to catch me online, I should be logged on to MSN or Yahoo, though not AOL.

One last thought. Chinese food is yummy.