Wow, that's almost the opposite of the way I use Facebook. I keep chat turned off all the time. I hate interruptions that demand (or even imply) an immediate response, and that's what live chat/text messages/IM represent to me.

Yes, sometimes I do want real-time messages, but that's not how I want things to be most of the time. I'm perfectly okay with seeing "old friend had a baby" or "cousin graduated from high school" the next day, or whenever. It's not that I don't care about these things; I do care about them. I just don't want things that don't require a real-time response sent through a real-time communications medium.