Now that I think about it, that's true. The same of IRC and MSN Messenger. Since being online all the time was not the default state of things, people only turn

Now that I think about it, that's true. The same of IRC and MSN Messenger. Since being online all the time was not the default state of things, people only turned those applications (or even their computers) on when they actually wanted to chat to other people. When you saw your friend online on one of those, you immediately wrote something to them, even if you didn't really have anything to say, because what was the point of having the application on otherwise?