The double-edged Discord sword

An ex internet chatroom addict shares his history and thoughts on chatroom's in relation to Steemit.

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In September 1997, I started university as a starry-eyed naive teenager. From a small town in northern England with lots of sheep and local pubs, I moved to a city in the midlands which housed 2 universities, totaling in term time, around 50000 18-21 year olds.

First I became friends with my new housemates, then next door, then next door but one, and soon, I knew most of the faces and names of the 60 or so people on our street. Staying up late and drinking (and eating!) a bit too much became all too common, but this was OK as it was 'socialising', and all the cool kids were doing it.

It's safe to say that learning was not a priority of the first couple of terms, turning up to class with a mad hangover, pretty pointless. Anyway, as well as making a bunch of new friends in 'real life', the new to me, speedy internet connections at the University allowed for the 'sharing' of files, and for me was my introductory setting to the sharing of myself - to total randoms online.

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A/S/L?

19/M/UK (or 39/M/Mallorca, Spain) as it is now.

Yahoo chat, IRC, ICQ, AOL chat, we're the first applications I became familiar with. First you started off in a 'room', and then perhaps found someone who shared similar 'interests', and would speak to them 1-1.

Communicating across the planet to a total strangers appealed to me a lot, the 5 second intro, lack of awkward silences, immediate ability to cut to a topic of interest, just seemed to save so much time. Or did it?

Hours would pass, typing away into a box, I should have been at the gym, socialising at the house, or doing some assignment work at the very least!

It's fair to say I was addicted to internet chat for periods of my time at University, and perhaps my grades would have been better had it not existed. In the final year, I did get down to work and get a decent mark, but the 100's of hours spent chatting about nothing much - fun, but what was gained? I'm unsure.

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The rise of the video chat

In early 2004, graduated, traveled and with a decent job sorted to start my days in employment, the evenings were free from hassle and I had time to spare. A then friend introduced me to a video chat site - and that was it. For some reading this story, the following is likely to freak you out, but there are hopefully a few of you who can relate...

Imagine, entering a chatroom where every member (200 people was not uncommon) has a video camera. Every member can key up the mic and talk to the room, and every member can interact privately too. Scale that up to 500 rooms, and at the time, 100,000 user online at any given moment.

Interaction overload. Total addiction to peering into peoples lives, and hearing what they had to say - about anything and everything. The rooms were moderated to some extent, age restrictions the main one - that was almost a full time job when the room got busy, and some nights that is pretty much all I would do. Meet, greet, and Ban.

Drink, drugs, self-harm, tits, dicks, suicides, (really, but I wasn't online at the time), and for sure some of the most PMSL times I've ever had sat on a chair at home, 'alone'.

I spent the best part of a decade on that application. Met over a hundred users in real life at meet-ups, spent time in relationships with some members, and watched peoples lives change slowly, or in some cases, overnight.

It was good, bad, ugly, and hilarious to the point of tears, and reality TV had, and still has absolutely nothing on it. 'Interactive reality TV', I was addicted to the core.

A few years back, my real life finally took priority again and I'm happy to say I've broken away from this place. My Facebook feed is still full of these people, but I don't check that often at all anyway.

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#welcometosteemit - a new addiction

So in August 2016, I signed up here. And a month later, I got a job at the UN and mostly forgot about this rather confusing place until around a year ago, when my twitter feed again started to fill up with '#crypto'.

Back then, with just an old phone, I began writing posts to nobody, as is often the case starting out. And it was steem.chat and the PAL network, that were the first places I noticed offering 'real time' interaction - my first thoughts were something like, 'I'm not getting into that again'.

Having only the phone helped, the steem.chat website and Discord ran like crap, and so I'd rarely go see if I could make sense of them, and there would be even less chance that I'd interact.

As last year progressed though, new communities presented themselves on our Blockchain and offered links to Discord or rooms on steem.chat, and I found myself adding Servers (to Discord), almost on a weekly basis.

Currently, (and I've deleted more than 5 in recent months) I see 31 Discord servers on the left side of the screen. Clicking on one of those gives me a list of 30 'rooms'.

It is just too much! That's something like 600 rooms, arrrghhh!

I know there is a reason I added each of these servers, and I know there is value to be had. But where? Where is the action happening right now? Where can I find the info to positively impact my Steeming?

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I'm everywhere and nowhere

To get a handle on the servers and rooms where the key discussions are taking place, requires time. To get to know the members of these communities takes even more time, energy, and focus.

I struggle with all of those for sure. I want to know what's going on and find and be a part of the most interesting discussions, but it just feels like hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack at times.

Bashing internet chat and Discord communities is not the remit for this blog, and I'm sure if you pick a niche community, jump in with both feet, there is value there for sure. Organizing events and the discussion of key topics certainly works better off-chain (as I found out recently).

In addition to that, friendships, an improved quality of content via help and guidance, and a few laughs are definitely there to be had, but I think that some personal restraint needs to be there so to not fall into the chats and never make it back out, for the reason you presumably signed up on Steemit.com - To produce or curate content on the Steem Blockchain.

I guess my message can be summed up with something like this. From personal experience I know how much internet chat can steal of your time, and sleep, and I advise precaution before stepping in to 'the deep end'.

Choose your servers wisely, and find a couple of communities that work for you. I'm Looking forward to reading your content, 'here'!

And for a contradictory ending to this blog, I am on Discord under the same username abh12345#9343 - mostly hiding in direct messages.

If you do wish to contact me, I like questions, information, being tagged where appropriate, and even links to awesome content - much more than 'Hi', or A/S/L :)

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Thanks for your time, and have a wonderful day!

Asher @abh12345