You may be thinking that the title to this post may be a little odd, but interesting nonetheless. The statistic is not due to errors within IM servers or your Internet connection turning off and on, this is something much more logical.

Have you ever started typing a message, before thinking 'I best not send that', or 'How am I going to phase this'? Have you forgot you were typing a message and became distracted? Michael Beißwenger's research suggests these are reasons for his statistic and the cause of why 1/5 of our messages are never sent.

The interesting thing is that this research has shown the same things happens when we are face to face with individuals, suggesting we forget what we are going to say next. I know for a fact I do this all the time, and I'm sure you do too:



What do you think of this? I know I do not send messages I have typed on occasion, but this is not a habit of mine. I find my previous message a cue for what I want to say next.

Source: News Scientist technology blog