While the IRC program itself was invented by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988, there has been an interesting history to the development of distributed chat communications that goes back to the early 1970's.

Mirc has a big influence upon our lifes ... this words are coming from a mircoholic like me.
i've met some of my best friends on irc and after more then 5 years i still hang out with them.. so u tell me.

No , i don't think that irc influences our lifes. Maybe u should turn off ur computer more often... I think irc is just another way to communicate and interact with other persons, i don't see that influencing my life... but then again , that is just me.

so perhaps if you've made friends on irc ...this doesn't have any influence upon your life neh?
i see what u mean.

i`d like to meet the creator of irc....where is he in jail?

for some of us, IRC is life and life is IRC. And who could blame them ?

dont know maybe IRC creator could be?

Irc History:
http://www.irc.org/history_docs/jarkko.html

Undernet & Irc History:
http://www.user-com.undernet.org/documents/uhistory.txt

The Great Split by Vegard Engen / May 2000
http://www.irc.org/history_docs/TheGreatSplit.html

I have seen along the years bad things related to IRC vs real life. I remember in 97 an episode involving a current oper and some other person (I wont say who) when, due to abuse in a channel I was in, the other guys went to the "person"'s house and cut off his IT cable (actually the intention was to beat up the poor fellow who had takn over the chan-with the help of his oper friend):)

That incident was isolated, but in our times, they increase in number and violence(cf. flood channels, bots etc). I have begun a sort of a study of the "history" of this change due to IRC. What I can say is that IRC is affecting the power to discerne right from wrong at a certain moment, and makes you free yourself from norms(of course nobody can see you, therefore you do want you dream of-becoming admin, oper, etc.)Well, this comes from a very evil scheme of fueling people's egotistical drives, boasting, etc, that is currently in progress in all social layers.
The solution is simple: do not allow kids to IRC before (18 yrs I would say), as at this age, they are mostly influenceable.( I used to be a professor before engaging in metallurgy, so I know very well what I am talking about).

Some of you may not agree with me, but I stick to this opinion nevertheless.

Melksedek

Name your dog DOTCom

yes it does influence our lives, its as simple as that
and very well written jasee

Mirc is a place with diffrent kind of people, i think i`d not abuse any conception saying that you could meet more lamers here than in real, but good people exist here too. I personally left myself influenced from the good and older ones and learned from them lessons of life, this is a thing i would have done it in real also.
The way i realised i am influenced by mirc is that i was getting annoyed of ppl`s gossiping, which is more intense than in real, as here our purpose is to "chat", and by chat i don`t mean just an asl.
I`ve selected my friends and i keep just the ones i am feeling like having fun with.. ignoring the rest that might affect me in a wrong way.
Be happy!
PAMELA__ aka Lu^

This is a "topic" I have been debating in my mind and with my friends for a long time now and I have really came to the conclusion that IRC is kind of addictive, many people who join once choose to join the second time and so on until they stay on IRC daily alot but for me not just IRC is addictive but the whole NET itself, but you do have to know when to draw a line, and the time you do spend online on websites and IRC also should at least be productive or i don`t know, not a waste of time, like if you have experience why not helping on IRC, or maybe creating a comunity or i don`t know, anything that is usefull at something, not just wasting time watching the Joins/Parts/Quits:) !

I'll never stop using IRC, well I guess so. I had met my bf here, so IRC is my life