are you really 'away'?

i've noticed for some time that whenever i on my msn, at least 9 out of 10 of the people who are online has the status of 'away' or 'busy'. i really think that people have really misused the status thing, especially saying that you are away but you're actually there. if you are there and you don't want people to disturb you, just be offline or something. yea, msn is not like icq where you can choose to be invisible to certain and visible to others. but the point of having msn is so that friends can keep in touch with you right? hmm...does it mean if you put your status as away, it means that friends can msg you whenever they want and you'll somehow receive it some other time of the day? or you just simply don't want people to msg you at all? mine would be the former but at least when i say i'm away, i'm not anywhere near the computer! or you could be like me, when you msg someone who is 'away' just ask if there are actually there or not!?