ABSTRACT
When there is no natural closing point, messaging might still continue for a long time and become boring. In this situation, the recipients have a problem. They would like to stop messaging, but this is not as simple as it would seem. Even though multimedia messages as such may continue for several turns, there is at least one natural closing point that works systematically: nighttime. The night is not just a natural closing point, but is sometimes also marked as such symbolically with good night messages that are particularly effectively in stopping messaging. Closings contain a great deal of what can be called relational work which helps people maintain their relationships. Most closings take only one message, but the sender may spread it over a series of several messages. In all, people were remarkably successful in avoiding confrontations; in those few instances in which messaging escalated into something akin to quarrelling, the reasons typically went back to strained personal relationships.
