I asked my student recently if he wanted me to get him a coffee so it was on his desk when he arrived off the bus. The chat program we use then told me, for about 30 more seconds, that he was "typing". I joked with another graduate student that all he had to say was "yes" followed by one of "cafe au lait," "cappuccino," or "espresso" (since that's really all the machine offers), and that he must think this is Starbucks and he's typing something like "I'll have a grande mocha, double whip, with half soy milk and half goat's milk, slightly stirred and then gently shaken forward and backward." It took forever for him to type "dark cafe au lait and 1 packet of sugar," which was what he finally sent me! :-)

Stephen Sekula at 2017-02-18T07:31:55Z

Yeah, I find that annoying too. Then you see when they are struggling with finding a proper response perhaps... ?

sazius at 2017-02-18T13:07:17Z

Christopher Allan Webber likes this.

Personally, in IM converations, I find them very helpful. I have a tendency to textwall at people, and I've found that several people have told me that they get frustrated because they were going to type a response, but then they had to delete it after several new lines come in.

It's helped me from talking over some people, so I appreciate that XMPP and Pidgin have this feature.

Christopher Allan Webber at 2017-02-18T15:39:05Z

Stephen Sekula likes this.