Non-Verbal Communication
It's all too easy, as a writer and a thinker, to lose sight of the fact that so much communication is non-verbal. Don't get me wrong, I'm very aware of it and I did my dissertation on the subject, but I still cannot escape the fact that I'm always reminded of the limitations of textual communication. Even the telephone doesn't suffer so much from this since it is still a genuine real-time conversation and we still have a lot of non-verbal identifiers in our speech pattern and inflection.
People often think of gestures when they think of non-verbal communication: a look, a smile, the shape of the mouth, the way we sit, the way we stand, the way we carry ourselves, what we do with our hands, what we do with our eyes, all that kind of stuff. What is often overlooked, I feel, is the way we speak. When we sigh, where the pauses fall, how we say something, what our face and body is doing when we say something in a particular way.
Actors (or anyone who has done any kind of serious acting) should know what I'm talking about. Directors who have actually worked with actors should also know.
My sister and I when we were children had a game we used to play. It was also a great way to mutually diffuse a real squabble. We called it the Yes/No game and we often would play it quite spontaneously. One of us would say only "Yes" the other would say only "No" (although often we'd sometimes suddenly switch around). By changing our inflection we'd change the meaning of the words and the discussion we were having. Either statement could switch to be assertive, whining, disbelieving, dismissive, argumentative, etc. And as one of us would change the way we said the word, the other would appropriately slip into a complimentary position in the Yes/No argument/discussion. The intonation could switch from being a squabble, to sharing gossip, to pleading, etc. It used to drive our parents insane, but we loved doing it. This is the kind of game that could never work online or in any other form of "text only" medium.
As a Brit, it's quickly recognised that ironic sarcasm really doesn't carry very well online. What you may say in a playful and ironic way can just as easily be read as serious and hurtful. A pause online may mean anything from what it's real-life counterpart might, to someone being distracted by the telephone, their computer crashing, doing other work, talking to someone else, being out of the room, any number of reasons.
In our online communication we need to be more verbose about ourselves and more expressive. Yes, we have emoticons to shortcut a lot of this, but even then, to truly communicate in a language driven medium, we find ourselves needing to be more verbally expressive. Walking into a room I might see someone sit, hanging their shoulders, perhaps a slight pout, I would hear them heave a sigh and hear the despondency in their voice when they greet me. I would know instantly (and they've only said one word "Hi") that they are feeling down, that they are sad, that they need someone to ask, compassionately: "Hey, what's up?" Online, that person would have to explicitly write: "*sigh* feeling a bit down today" and reach out for that sympathy. It can feel a little forced. Sometimes, people don't want to seek support (or can run the risk of seeming needy), or may even at first refuse to say that anything is wrong, but really they crave it, they want someone to help them out of a problem. Online, unless that information is deliberately communicated it is often very difficult to catch that something is up.
That said, there evolves a kind of unspoken and perhaps even unconscious etiquette for this kind of thing. It's not fully developed, I don't think, and I'm not really in any position to do any kind of real study in it, but for people who have got to know each others' communication patterns well enough they may still pick up on unconscious signals. The way someone writes, the way they respond. It's very difficult, but only exists by, at first, being far more verbose than we would normally be in person.
Perhaps it is this "forced" means of communicating ourselves that is at the heart of why people can be more open about themselves online than when they are face-to-face. Not only do we have time to consider our words, but we don't need to worry about how the other person views us. If we are so sad that speaking about a subject drives us to tears, we don't need to feel embarrassed that the other person is seeing us cry, that our voice would crack from emotion. If we are so enthralled by someone when they are talking that you want to bounce up and down with joy and exalt your feelings to the heavens (so long as you're not in the office) you can do so without trying to contain yourself in their immediate presence. If you are shaking with nerves as you tell someone a secret or something deeply personal, they don't see it. You have more confidence in that they cannot see how nervous you are.
In some ways, online communication allows people to be truer to themselves, which in other ways online communication cuts out maybe 85% of who we really are.
I suppose, in the 10 years since I wrote my dissertation on the subject, the world has come a long way. For those of us who text, talk on MSN, ICQ, IRC or whatever other form of textual chat of choice, we easily switch between these forms of speech so much we rarely stop and consciously think about it.
People often think of gestures when they think of non-verbal communication: a look, a smile, the shape of the mouth, the way we sit, the way we stand, the way we carry ourselves, what we do with our hands, what we do with our eyes, all that kind of stuff. What is often overlooked, I feel, is the way we speak. When we sigh, where the pauses fall, how we say something, what our face and body is doing when we say something in a particular way.
Actors (or anyone who has done any kind of serious acting) should know what I'm talking about. Directors who have actually worked with actors should also know.
My sister and I when we were children had a game we used to play. It was also a great way to mutually diffuse a real squabble. We called it the Yes/No game and we often would play it quite spontaneously. One of us would say only "Yes" the other would say only "No" (although often we'd sometimes suddenly switch around). By changing our inflection we'd change the meaning of the words and the discussion we were having. Either statement could switch to be assertive, whining, disbelieving, dismissive, argumentative, etc. And as one of us would change the way we said the word, the other would appropriately slip into a complimentary position in the Yes/No argument/discussion. The intonation could switch from being a squabble, to sharing gossip, to pleading, etc. It used to drive our parents insane, but we loved doing it. This is the kind of game that could never work online or in any other form of "text only" medium.
As a Brit, it's quickly recognised that ironic sarcasm really doesn't carry very well online. What you may say in a playful and ironic way can just as easily be read as serious and hurtful. A pause online may mean anything from what it's real-life counterpart might, to someone being distracted by the telephone, their computer crashing, doing other work, talking to someone else, being out of the room, any number of reasons.
In our online communication we need to be more verbose about ourselves and more expressive. Yes, we have emoticons to shortcut a lot of this, but even then, to truly communicate in a language driven medium, we find ourselves needing to be more verbally expressive. Walking into a room I might see someone sit, hanging their shoulders, perhaps a slight pout, I would hear them heave a sigh and hear the despondency in their voice when they greet me. I would know instantly (and they've only said one word "Hi") that they are feeling down, that they are sad, that they need someone to ask, compassionately: "Hey, what's up?" Online, that person would have to explicitly write: "*sigh* feeling a bit down today" and reach out for that sympathy. It can feel a little forced. Sometimes, people don't want to seek support (or can run the risk of seeming needy), or may even at first refuse to say that anything is wrong, but really they crave it, they want someone to help them out of a problem. Online, unless that information is deliberately communicated it is often very difficult to catch that something is up.
That said, there evolves a kind of unspoken and perhaps even unconscious etiquette for this kind of thing. It's not fully developed, I don't think, and I'm not really in any position to do any kind of real study in it, but for people who have got to know each others' communication patterns well enough they may still pick up on unconscious signals. The way someone writes, the way they respond. It's very difficult, but only exists by, at first, being far more verbose than we would normally be in person.
Perhaps it is this "forced" means of communicating ourselves that is at the heart of why people can be more open about themselves online than when they are face-to-face. Not only do we have time to consider our words, but we don't need to worry about how the other person views us. If we are so sad that speaking about a subject drives us to tears, we don't need to feel embarrassed that the other person is seeing us cry, that our voice would crack from emotion. If we are so enthralled by someone when they are talking that you want to bounce up and down with joy and exalt your feelings to the heavens (so long as you're not in the office) you can do so without trying to contain yourself in their immediate presence. If you are shaking with nerves as you tell someone a secret or something deeply personal, they don't see it. You have more confidence in that they cannot see how nervous you are.
In some ways, online communication allows people to be truer to themselves, which in other ways online communication cuts out maybe 85% of who we really are.
I suppose, in the 10 years since I wrote my dissertation on the subject, the world has come a long way. For those of us who text, talk on MSN, ICQ, IRC or whatever other form of textual chat of choice, we easily switch between these forms of speech so much we rarely stop and consciously think about it.