I would come home from middle school and have multi-hour conversations with the people I had just seen at school, plus a few strangers from the internet, only taking a break for dinner. It was an unusual time.
I remember the paranoia involved in that, since someone couldn’t earn you unless you’d sent them a message. If you and A were warning each other, you’d stop replying to A, but A might recruit B and C to start a friendly chat with you and then warn you when you’d responded enough. So you’d get a seemingly unrelated “hey what’s up?” and try to figure out if it was safe to talk to them.
Them: "hey whats up" Me: "nm you?" Them: "nm" Me: "cool"
EOL