Instant Messaging became such a pain in the rear when it first became available on Prodigy that I disabled it. I kept getting interrupted doing things that were important to me, sometimes losing bodies of text that got dumped when I went to IM to respond to the IM.

I don't know if any current version of IM will allow you to retain what you are doing without jumping thru extra hoops or not.

If you want to be open for friends to know when you are online, I guess it could be a good tool.

I happen to like the ability to choose who knows what I'm doing when I'm doing it. There are enough ways to communicate within this medium to suit my personal needs without being interrupted by darn near anyone who feels like it when they feel like it.

Send an email, set up a chatroom, post to BB's. IM, in my opinion, is best suited for teenagers, or closed-loop online business applications.

....my opinions are based on being stalked a few years back, so you may not experience the same results using IM.

Bob