IM Overdose

I can't deny it. College students, including myself, are known for being lazy (and for good reason). Our laziness comes in many forms, such as using your rommate's printer instead of getting your own or deciding altogether class is interfering with your nap schedule. Another time when this laziness seems to shine is when it comes to hunger and eating meals. It is true we often choose take-out over a two minute walk to the grocery store. But how can we resist, when restaurants offer takeout late at night and some web sites make ordering food as easy as a click of the mouse?

Web sites such as Campusfood have a list of restaurants to choose from, and for an extra charge they let you order off the menu and they will pick it up and bring it right to your doorstep. While it is not complicated, you just fill out an online ordering form and fill out your contact info, it looks as though taking out is being made even easier.

In a February 3 article in the Boston Globe called IM Starving it looks as though restaurants, such as the Angora Cafe, are allowing eaters to simply send an instant message that serves as placing your order at that restaurant. This method of take-out does skip a few steps that are currently necessary in ordering from the food web sites. While there are only a few places taking part in IM'ing your dinner order, students already taking part think it may catch on.

One of the students projected in the artcile that in the coming years, all companies will have a screen name. So much for the idea of burning the calories you are going to eat by actually walking to the place, or at least picking up the phone! And we wonder as Americans we are seen as lazy and overweight ...