(no subject)
I wrote this as a comment to a story in the new scientist blog which reported on google wave and its ways of mixing e-mail and chat. In particular, you get to see the other persons' text as it is typed.
My first chat by computer in '94 was via a BBS system (MBBS to be precise) and I could see every letter of the other person, as he typed it. It was an initially offsetting experience to switch to more "modern" chatting where text is sent one line at a time. It gave the impression that the other person had fallen silent for a time and others got that impression of me.
Imperceptebly to myself, I must have re-crafted my chat-text so that it would consist of shorter separate sentences, each on one line. The new one-line-at-a-time format also had another effect on my chats: It became possible for us to hold two different conversations at the same time. If my chat-companion brought up two topics on one line, I would reply with two lines, one for each topic. These would then get their replies as two separate threads of conversations. I believe most of us can find instances of this in our online chats today.
I'm relying on introspection here, but I believe this multithreading would not have been possible when each letter appeared instantly. The continuous stream of letters held ones attention much like a vocal conversation does. Then again, in the old format I could interrupt the speaker mid-sentence. Interruption I'm told, can be used as a cue in e.g. french culture, to indicate that you've grasped the speakers' point. If not he just keeps on speaking. This cue got harder to get across with one line at a time chats.
Looking back, it is obvious that one-line-at-a-time came about because of technical limitations. At the BBS, me and the other person was logged in on the same computer, with only a direct phone-line separating us. Chats on the internet involved longer and more unpredictable delays in transmission which would make the text progress in bursts and stutters. Not to mention how inefficient it would be to transmit each letter in its own data packet.
This only goes to show how details in the implementation of something seemingly straightforward or details in the underlying architecture, can shape how we communicate. There must be a whole world of ways to communicate that noone is yet to think of. Most likely, these new modes will differ from known ways only in little details. Details that only later are revealed to make an immense difference.
My first chat by computer in '94 was via a BBS system (MBBS to be precise) and I could see every letter of the other person, as he typed it. It was an initially offsetting experience to switch to more "modern" chatting where text is sent one line at a time. It gave the impression that the other person had fallen silent for a time and others got that impression of me.
Imperceptebly to myself, I must have re-crafted my chat-text so that it would consist of shorter separate sentences, each on one line. The new one-line-at-a-time format also had another effect on my chats: It became possible for us to hold two different conversations at the same time. If my chat-companion brought up two topics on one line, I would reply with two lines, one for each topic. These would then get their replies as two separate threads of conversations. I believe most of us can find instances of this in our online chats today.
I'm relying on introspection here, but I believe this multithreading would not have been possible when each letter appeared instantly. The continuous stream of letters held ones attention much like a vocal conversation does. Then again, in the old format I could interrupt the speaker mid-sentence. Interruption I'm told, can be used as a cue in e.g. french culture, to indicate that you've grasped the speakers' point. If not he just keeps on speaking. This cue got harder to get across with one line at a time chats.
Looking back, it is obvious that one-line-at-a-time came about because of technical limitations. At the BBS, me and the other person was logged in on the same computer, with only a direct phone-line separating us. Chats on the internet involved longer and more unpredictable delays in transmission which would make the text progress in bursts and stutters. Not to mention how inefficient it would be to transmit each letter in its own data packet.
This only goes to show how details in the implementation of something seemingly straightforward or details in the underlying architecture, can shape how we communicate. There must be a whole world of ways to communicate that noone is yet to think of. Most likely, these new modes will differ from known ways only in little details. Details that only later are revealed to make an immense difference.