Essentially interactions like this:
(See, I knew I'd find a use for it)
Disembodied interactions like the one above don't really occur in real time and they don't exist in and sort of reality space (that sounds far too sci-fi for this blog). The biggest question, for me, which arises out of the screen shot though is; would these pepole react this way in person. I believe, for the most part, people feel more free to express themselves in this way, particularly with people they don't know and aren't likely to meet, during online interactions. In this way there is a disjuncture between their online identities and their real life identites.
Now I would like to talk a little about how social media has changedt he ways in which pepole can interact with each other. The idea came to me during the tute this morning. A few days ago a band I listen to made a fairly major announcement through Facebook.
In thinking about this I considered how that announcement would have been made years ago, before social media. Most likely it would have been done through some sort of interview, whether it be on a radio show or in a magazine. But with social media not only can speech reach a wide audience immediately, it allows others to weigh in and comment freely. In my opinion it is this which is the best aspect of online communication, the freedom and wide reach which it makes possible.
Finally, I'd like to say something briefly about the issue of online communication being either speech or text. In my opinion online speech is kind of like some hideous conglomeration of the two. Typically when communicating online we type in a similar fashion to the ways we speak, but in doing so we are putting that speech into text. This transfer can cause issues. As you may have noticed I tend to be fairly sarcastic, sarcasm tends to be hard to get across without tone and expression, things which are, obviously, missing from online communications. To deal with these issues we have other 'online specific phrases' (thats what I'm calling them), things such as "lol" and smileys. If after every joke you literally poked your tongue out...pepole would think your insane, but using smileys it's normal, and helps to show a lack of seriousness in the comment.
Thanks for reading
Hi Corey,
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed your blog and the examples that you have used. I completely agree with you in saying that people behave differently while online than offline – we have all seen it – and maybe it’s the anonymous and unidentified nature of the interaction. Or maybe it’s the fact that there is a computer screen between the individuals in the online setting that allows people to say things that they wouldn’t normally. At the same time, I can’t help but think that some people take the online space as a place for expressing the things that they never had the chance to say, which has, as you have said, increased recently due to social networking sites and blogging sites where we can actively interact with one another.
Of course there are advantages to such mediums of communication – it’s easy, accessible, doesn’t require you to actually meet with the person to talk to them, and in some cases there is more time to respond. There are more, but I guess we all know why we are using them. Another aspect that comes to mind are the more negative impacts, which include misinterpretation and misunderstanding, which is increasingly evident in the world of online interaction. I’m sure there are many people out there – including myself – who have said something, and it has come across in a way which was really, really not intended. This happens even more frequently when you are talking to another person who you don’t actually know, making the mending of such a situation much more awkward and embarrassing. Is this enough to stop using SNS and the like, probably not - but it’s worth thinking about for a little moment.
Thanks again for a great blog!
Thanks for the comment
DeleteHi Corey,
ReplyDeleteGood blog, enjoyable. You mentioned that tone and expression are absent from online communications, however if you look at online communication the same way an English student would look at a novel or a poem where there is no vocal communication, the student will still find a voice with in the text. Often the author/poets voice and the narrators voice. This can still be applied to the online communication as people read into what others say. It all comes down to context. The first screen shot that you have used in the blog doesn’t have much of a context other than we recognise the girl to be criticising something, but we are unable to be certain of what – unless we know the context.
For centuries authors, artist and scribes have been capable of using written text as a means of communication with out actually having the conversation face to face. The same is for online communication, the only difference is most people can’t spell and most of the time there is an instantaneous response.
Online communication becomes annoying when someone ‘updates a status every five seconds’ which is often the equivalent to vomit on a page from an authors failure in producing a worthy text to be published.
Your blog made me think about all of the above ideas I mentioned, great work!
Hey,
DeleteThats a good point, yes we tend to look for the tone when reading other things, but in novels etc. we also have other things around the speech which help to get the tone across, something which is, generally, missing from online interactions. Without this context from the rest of the text it becomes alot harder to get tone, sarcasm etc. and this is the situation we generally find ourselves in in these types of interactions.
As the above commenter said, this is even more of an issue when talking to someone who you may not know too well. While my friends understand the majority of my texts and messages and stuff are sarcastic and not to be taken seriously, pepole who I may be working with in a group or something along those lines don't always get that cue, and I'm certainly not going to put: "Blah blah blah" he said sarcastically, in my text messages.
Oh, and I apologise for the lack of context in the first image, but it was actually posted earlier in my blog where I did give context, but that's my bad for not signaling that in this post.
Thank you for your comment,
CM