[bearcobra]

One of the problems I have with instant messages is you can't tell if you are interrupting the other person. Some people may be able to ignore the message, but I think for many this kind of notifications create a sense of urgency and push them to reply still. Being conscious of this, I try to avoid sending IMs. In person, interactions give me way more signals about the other person's current state. Because of that I'm about 1000x more likely to say hi to a random co-worker walking down the hall than I am to send a random IM.

[dasmoth]

There's some truth in this.

The best solution to this is that if you've got something non-urgent that you'd like a colleague to think about at some point, use a truly asynchronous medium (e.g. e-mail, so long as you're not in an organisation which uses it as a de facto IM platform).

This is true whether or not the people you're trying to communicate with are in the same building.

[Karunamon]

IMO, that comes with the adjustment to using IM and is partly an office cultural thing. Most people I know toggle their status to "busy" or "DND" when otherwise engaged in a thing, and it's an understanding that being on open status means that people are okay to ping you or send memes.