It looks like you're thinking

I caught another great Kinkenborg piece on the road about e-mail, sms and instant messaging.

So why does I.M. seem so radical? I think it's the slight delay built into the system -- the pause when the software indicates that the other person is typing. On the telephone, that would sound like the awkwardness of dead air. In I.M., it sounds like thinking, and anything that can make the chatter of two people typing over each other sound like thinking is incredible.

From Wiring the Frog, or Personal Tales From the Electronic Present, 16 August 2007.