Instant Messaging

It has become a nightly ritual: Around 7 p.m., Erika Goldberg, 12, of Jenkintown, hops onto the family PC. Homework? The beginnings of a term paper? Sometimes. But Erika also is a devotee of "instant messaging," the high-tech form of communication practiced by millions of teens and preteens. Less intimate than a phone call but more interactive than traditional e-mail, instant messaging clearly has taken hold. According to a report released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, "IM-ing" has become indispensable to nearly 13 million teens who rely on the techno-communication tool to bolster relationships with friends who live far away or who sit next to them in math class.

Vince Cignarella says his teenage daughter isn't impressed by the high-stakes currency trades he makes from Sovereign Bank's subterranean trading room. "She says we just instant-message people all day. And, you know, we do," Cignarella said Wednesday, tapping his computer keyboard and swiveling among three monitors flashing multiple data screens from Bloomberg and Reuters, and zipping price gossip to traders in New York, Toronto and other cities. But it's not idle chat. There's a lot riding on the questions and answers that securities and currency traders like Cignarella and his colleagues send around the globe every weekday and weeknight.

Back in the dark ages of communication, when teenagers wanted to talk to their friends they often tied up their parents' phone lines with endless conversations. Eventually, phone companies capitalized on parents' frustration and offered the "teen line" - a second household phone line - to keep peace in American families. Today's teenagers may be tying up their parents' phone lines, too, but chances are that, rather than chatting on a second telephone, they are instant messaging their friends via the Internet.

From a cyber-perspective, 11-year-old Ben Winebrake learned to sprint before he could crawl. The middle-school student from Upper Dublin got his first home computer in May and immediately began instant-messaging his friends two or three times a day. Has he ever e-mailed anyone? "Hmm," he muses. "I don't think so. " You can take that as a no. For anyone under 25, e-mail, though still used by many, is rapidly becoming relegated to stodgier purposes such as applying to schools, contacting a teacher or professor about an assignment, or thanking a grandmother for the birthday check.

Back in the Stone Age, that is, the 1990s, if a young man wanted to date a young woman, he had to work through her parents: Call the house, be polite when mom or dad answered the phone, make small talk when he arrived at their door. No more. These days, technology is excising parents from the equation - and they don't like it a bit. Today the interaction is more often conducted teen to teen via cell phone, text messaging, and instant messaging. That makes it harder for parents to know who their kids are spending time with - not just as dates, but as friends.

Hey, kids, let's go hang out at the government Internet kids' site. There's neat stuff there like . . . no chat rooms, no instant messaging - in fact, not much of anything that's interactive. But it's OK because it's safer for us. So let's go log on! Now, back to the real world . . . where it's not so easy to protect the young from the unsavory images and would-be predators online. Take current congressional efforts to create a new corner of the Internet for kid-friendly Web sites.

HARRISBURG - A bill that would impose a $100 fine on drivers in Pennsylvania for using wireless devices or talking on cellphones without a hands-free device passed the state Senate yesterday, as legislators try to wrap up a debate that dragged on for years in the Legislature. The bill, which passed, 41-8, goes to the House of Representatives, where a similar bill is being considered. House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, hopes to get a bill out of that chamber by the end of June, a spokesman said.

Facebook. Twitter. MySpace. Cell phones. Blogs. Time thieves, all of them. Or at least that's how they've sometimes been portrayed in news media, common lore, and even the occasional scholarly study. Not the real thing, not really human contact. Trivial, superficial connections that take up time we once spent with real friends, family, community. Americans are already isolated enough: We're the lonely crowd. We bowl alone. Social media just add to the Great American Isolation, right?

PlayStation 2. Palm Pilot. Instant messaging. High speed wireless Web connection. MP3. Gigahertz microprocessor. DVD. HDTV. X Box. If you're proud owner or operator of any of the above - or long to be - it's time to unplug and experience another kind of digital technology: what the 10 digits of the human hand are capable of creating. You'll find it at the Convention Center, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Crafts Show, closing tomorrow. These are not your father's macrame plant hangers, but exquisitely rendered jewelry, carvings, weavings, pottery and more, celebrating individual expression.

BROKERAGES Father & son accused of $60M fraud A Bala Cynwyd brokerage operated by a father and son defrauded 7,000 investors of $60 million by selling them unsecured debt obligations that were advertised as being safe investments, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges in a lawsuit. The lawsuit accuses William S. Shapiro, 75, owner of Welco Securities, and his son, Kenneth Shapiro, 46, president of the company, of suggesting in advertisements on kiosks in airports, bus stations and other public places that the speculative investments were as safe as bank certificates of deposit.

HARRISBURG - A bill that would impose a $100 fine on drivers in Pennsylvania for using wireless devices or talking on cellphones without a hands-free device passed the state Senate yesterday, as legislators try to wrap up a debate that dragged on for years in the Legislature. The bill, which passed, 41-8, goes to the House of Representatives, where a similar bill is being considered. House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, hopes to get a bill out of that chamber by the end of June, a spokesman said.

It shattered nerves but no windows, and left residents near Franklin Mills Mall feeling all shook up Friday night - but there is no "I Survived the Great Earthquake of 2011" T-shirt, and there's no reason to panic in the streets of Northeast Philadelphia. Geophysicists at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., did not classify Philly's 1.7-scale tremor as an earthquake until Saturday, when a small regional agency - the Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network - informed them that it was a "micro" quake on the Richter magnitude scale.

By Marie Hardin While the misdeeds of high-profile athletes, actors, and politicians have made headlines this year, as they usually do, the misdeeds of organizations have been the most consequential and likely to reverberate into the future. There's little need to review the well-documented missteps of BP, Toyota, Goldman Sachs, Massey Energy, and others. You're likely familiar with these companies for reasons they'd rather you weren't. Each company's mishandling of its situation has led business and public-relations experts to search for answers about what's wrong with corporate America.

Facebook. Twitter. MySpace. Cell phones. Blogs. Time thieves, all of them. Or at least that's how they've sometimes been portrayed in news media, common lore, and even the occasional scholarly study. Not the real thing, not really human contact. Trivial, superficial connections that take up time we once spent with real friends, family, community. Americans are already isolated enough: We're the lonely crowd. We bowl alone. Social media just add to the Great American Isolation, right?

Organizers of a cyber-bullying conference in Gloucester County yesterday set the tone by showing the movie Sticks and Stones. In it, the popular Lindsay and loner Brandon share a high school English class. Though they rarely speak to each other, they exchange text messages in class and instant messages late at night. But when Lindsay's boyfriend gets into her computer, he sends a humiliating picture of Brandon to the entire school. One night he even messages Brandon from Lindsay's screen name, pretending to be her. When Brandon confesses his love, she tells him to "just disappear.

Maalik Wayns couldn't help but scream in delight. He treasured that play in the second round of the NCAA Tournament when Villanova's Dwayne Anderson made a headlong dive, in transition, to knock the ball free from a UCLA player. No. 1, he recognized the effort as simply tremendous. No. 2 . . . "I knew coach [Jay] Wright would love it," he said. "That's the kind of stuff that matters the most to him. "I was standing up for that one. And yelling, 'Yeah! Let's go!

IN the blink of an eye or, more precisely, the click of a mouse - a family was destroyed. Last year, 13-year-old Megan Meier made friends online with a boy named Josh Evans. He seemed to like her - a very big deal to Megan. The, one day, Josh turned on her. "I don't know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I've heard that you are not very nice to your friends. " Soon, "Josh" was spreading rumors and people were posting online notices calling her fat, and a slut, the Associated Press reported.

The first job after college is the most important in anyone's career because it establishes the foundation of a lifelong professional reputation. With that in mind, here are 10 lessons recent graduates may not have learned in school. They should learn them now, if they want to build that critical first job into a successful career. 1. Don't be a hermit. A few years ago, I helped a graduate land a job, only to learn he was fired after just six months. When I called his boss to ask about the problem, I was told: "John performed his job well, but never said 'good morning' to anyone.

Peggy Johnson Crocker planned to take pictures of motorcycles this week for her son, a Philadelphia soldier serving in Iraq. Army Cpl. Carl W. Johnson II wanted to buy one as soon as he returned home in January, Crocker said yesterday. "Then he said, 'I have to go to bed now. I'll talk to you when I get back from my mission,' " Crocker said last night. "He never came back. " Johnson died Oct. 7 in Mosul, Iraq, from injuries he suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle, according to the Department of Defense.

If you're under 25, or have children who are, you know what the initials AIM stand for. They're probably a permanent presence on your computer screen. For the blissfully clueless, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) has become a favorite form of electronic communication for millions. Instant messaging is fast, direct, casual and supple; you can carry on dozens of simultaneous shorthand "conversations" in the little AIM boxes that pop up on your screen. As reported in Thursday's Inquirer, many IM-crazy kids now regard e-mail as a stodgy, old-people medium.