It's not empathy but it does feel like a sort of extra carefulness about how something I say or do *might* affect how someone feels, and a lot of paranoia around it too. On the other hand I feel better at triangulating who ppl are, what kinds of opinions they would have about things, how generally emotionally stressed they may be ... etc. Maybe I feel more confident about reasoning around someone's character traits than something more detached (like a system or a process), although it's not like I feel I know some magical truth. I think w weak IMs you feel like someone is taking a lot of liberties in analysis, whereas with strong ones it's like this information just exists and you're sifting thru it.