Minimal MSN communication

I’m not sure if it’s just me, the technology reducing our attention spans or (most likely) a combination of both, but I’ve developed an increasingly terse response style for conversations on instant messenger. I get much more curt the better I know someone too. As an example:

Tim says:
as I know you're not busy
Tim says:
want to test something for bugs for me?
Karl says:
1/10
Tim says:
he he he

Hardly the best chat ever.