Assignment X
2.Many things are signaled in conversations. One is the relative status of the participants: this is indicated through the use of polite language, the choreography of interruptions, usef of formal or vernacular language, etc. Another is one's comprehension of the other's statements: this can be siganled through nods, rephrasing, etc. How are these indicated in electronic media such as IM? What could make this signal clearer? Does it need to be more reliable? If so, when - and how would it be made so?
Digital society has customized English when used in email, chat, or blogging. In these cases the differences in status is more about whether the person is a new user of the technology or an experienced one or what is the professional seniority of the communicator, or the geekyness of people. The language used in the digital world is kind of “hard-shelled”. Although the Internet does not block people from communicating, knowing and using the language people use in that society makes the communicator more welcome and part of the society. There is a sense of belonging. The background knowledge of the culture and communication style is known to all people communicating and so people can take interact without the formal niceties. Moreover, people especially teenagers in different parts of the world have some different jargon over the regular chat lingo that they use.
As an example, when I started using IM I took the pains to cross my Ts and dot my ‘I’s , but not for long because I picked up the lingo, chatting with others who had been communicating via IM longer than I had been. AIM was the official communication medium in my previous company. Many of us peers would chat using familiar chat lingo like ‘brb’ ( be right back), ‘pls’ (please) ‘gtg’ (got to go) . We would never capitalize and punctuate in a grammatically correct fashion. Typing in IM is the equivalent of talking. However, when I chatted with my boss, she used IM as written communication rather than a verbal one. All the managers would use grammatically correct sentences and form their thoughts and sentences. In such a case there could be a misunderstanding of tone and intent if the two people do not know each other very well.
Use of Emoticons is very popular and almost inherent to the chat language. Smileys are used in every kind of instant messenger and in email to depict the mood or feelings of the sender or if the sender wants to indicate that s/he is doing something else like drinking a cup of coffee, talking to someone on the phone, or thinking. These are actions that are identified only in face-to-face conversations and is quite cumbersome to type out in chat, the smileys work perfectly. When they first began there were very few, seeing how the language and practice of people when chatting evolved, more smileys were introduced.
These are however not reliable signals, because it is possible for the person to be feeling angry with the other person but will not want to be rude and let the person know. Someone I recently spoke to told me about how his mother, a developmental psychologist was very disturbed when she saw her daughter who was chatting with multiple people, with tears running down her cheeks but typing in ‘LOL’ (laugh out loud) into a chat window. When asked, the girl replied that she was really sad and upset about a conversation she was having with one friend, but was having a happy and funny conversation with another!!! This is quite an alarming situation considering the havoc multiple parallel emotions can play on someone’s mind.
One way to prevent deception could be to check deceivers according to whether they follow the communication rules and lingo of the sub-group with whom they are communicating. I am not so sure there is an efficient way to control the way people use emoticons. Maybe the graphical representations of chat rooms could indicate to others, the emotion and type of conversation in progress, based on keywords being used in the chat room. It might be more challenging to increase costs of deception in personal IM chats.
3. Comparing Fuzzmail, chat circles, comic chat, and regular messaging or email.
I am not sure any of the mediums of communication mentioned come close to physical representation. The aspects of physical representation are distributed across the different methods. IM, I think comes closest to a physical representation in the context of face-to-face communication because people use pictures to identify themselves and use language they would as in verbal communication. However, deception is relatively easy because you can have multiple conversations with multiple people while keeping each conversation hidden from the other. Instances like the one I mentioned above happen all the time when having multiple conversations. Expressing feelings using emoticons is easy and it gives “expressions” to the text being exchanged, at the same time it’s ease of use leads to deceitful signals as well. Letters, however, signal the true intentions and feelings to the receiver because of the costs involved in writing it. They have a personal quality to it because of the act of selecting the paper, pen, and spending the time writing it. People writing letters of congratulations or condolences put a lot of thought into them thus increasing cost and reliability.
Fuzzmail is almost scary, it gives a ghostly feeling of seeing my message play out. Being aware of this feature, the sender could very well use this medium to play pranks and send intentionally incorrect messages to others. I think it is more about being a fun tool than about being used for communication. Chat circles I think is less personal, but more useful in tracking information by reading into the size and distance of the circles. The use of circles and colors for all communicators removes a lot of information about the communicator’s personality, a lot of which can be retained in IM and even letters. Emails are more versatile; you can use IM language, formal/official language, or even a personal tone as in letters. Emails allow you the time to think about what you write and the control of the transaction is usually in the hands of the receivers based on when they reply.
In all these text-based communication methods, it is hard to read between the lines and judge the real tone and intent of the sender unless the receivers knows the sender very well and is familiar with their writing style and voacabulary. This aspect of digital communication or even letters for that matter does affect the reliability of the message. Honest communicators can use email and IM for business and personal conversations, because being dishonest could prove to be very costly.
Information of how many people one is in conversation with and the tone of the conversation (maybe tracked through keywords) if displayed to others online could help control deception by making the receiver aware. Thus, a combination of chat circles and IM could do something about controlling deception when interacting with others socially.
Digital society has customized English when used in email, chat, or blogging. In these cases the differences in status is more about whether the person is a new user of the technology or an experienced one or what is the professional seniority of the communicator, or the geekyness of people. The language used in the digital world is kind of “hard-shelled”. Although the Internet does not block people from communicating, knowing and using the language people use in that society makes the communicator more welcome and part of the society. There is a sense of belonging. The background knowledge of the culture and communication style is known to all people communicating and so people can take interact without the formal niceties. Moreover, people especially teenagers in different parts of the world have some different jargon over the regular chat lingo that they use.
As an example, when I started using IM I took the pains to cross my Ts and dot my ‘I’s , but not for long because I picked up the lingo, chatting with others who had been communicating via IM longer than I had been. AIM was the official communication medium in my previous company. Many of us peers would chat using familiar chat lingo like ‘brb’ ( be right back), ‘pls’ (please) ‘gtg’ (got to go) . We would never capitalize and punctuate in a grammatically correct fashion. Typing in IM is the equivalent of talking. However, when I chatted with my boss, she used IM as written communication rather than a verbal one. All the managers would use grammatically correct sentences and form their thoughts and sentences. In such a case there could be a misunderstanding of tone and intent if the two people do not know each other very well.
Use of Emoticons is very popular and almost inherent to the chat language. Smileys are used in every kind of instant messenger and in email to depict the mood or feelings of the sender or if the sender wants to indicate that s/he is doing something else like drinking a cup of coffee, talking to someone on the phone, or thinking. These are actions that are identified only in face-to-face conversations and is quite cumbersome to type out in chat, the smileys work perfectly. When they first began there were very few, seeing how the language and practice of people when chatting evolved, more smileys were introduced.
These are however not reliable signals, because it is possible for the person to be feeling angry with the other person but will not want to be rude and let the person know. Someone I recently spoke to told me about how his mother, a developmental psychologist was very disturbed when she saw her daughter who was chatting with multiple people, with tears running down her cheeks but typing in ‘LOL’ (laugh out loud) into a chat window. When asked, the girl replied that she was really sad and upset about a conversation she was having with one friend, but was having a happy and funny conversation with another!!! This is quite an alarming situation considering the havoc multiple parallel emotions can play on someone’s mind.
One way to prevent deception could be to check deceivers according to whether they follow the communication rules and lingo of the sub-group with whom they are communicating. I am not so sure there is an efficient way to control the way people use emoticons. Maybe the graphical representations of chat rooms could indicate to others, the emotion and type of conversation in progress, based on keywords being used in the chat room. It might be more challenging to increase costs of deception in personal IM chats.
3. Comparing Fuzzmail, chat circles, comic chat, and regular messaging or email.
I am not sure any of the mediums of communication mentioned come close to physical representation. The aspects of physical representation are distributed across the different methods. IM, I think comes closest to a physical representation in the context of face-to-face communication because people use pictures to identify themselves and use language they would as in verbal communication. However, deception is relatively easy because you can have multiple conversations with multiple people while keeping each conversation hidden from the other. Instances like the one I mentioned above happen all the time when having multiple conversations. Expressing feelings using emoticons is easy and it gives “expressions” to the text being exchanged, at the same time it’s ease of use leads to deceitful signals as well. Letters, however, signal the true intentions and feelings to the receiver because of the costs involved in writing it. They have a personal quality to it because of the act of selecting the paper, pen, and spending the time writing it. People writing letters of congratulations or condolences put a lot of thought into them thus increasing cost and reliability.
Fuzzmail is almost scary, it gives a ghostly feeling of seeing my message play out. Being aware of this feature, the sender could very well use this medium to play pranks and send intentionally incorrect messages to others. I think it is more about being a fun tool than about being used for communication. Chat circles I think is less personal, but more useful in tracking information by reading into the size and distance of the circles. The use of circles and colors for all communicators removes a lot of information about the communicator’s personality, a lot of which can be retained in IM and even letters. Emails are more versatile; you can use IM language, formal/official language, or even a personal tone as in letters. Emails allow you the time to think about what you write and the control of the transaction is usually in the hands of the receivers based on when they reply.
In all these text-based communication methods, it is hard to read between the lines and judge the real tone and intent of the sender unless the receivers knows the sender very well and is familiar with their writing style and voacabulary. This aspect of digital communication or even letters for that matter does affect the reliability of the message. Honest communicators can use email and IM for business and personal conversations, because being dishonest could prove to be very costly.
Information of how many people one is in conversation with and the tone of the conversation (maybe tracked through keywords) if displayed to others online could help control deception by making the receiver aware. Thus, a combination of chat circles and IM could do something about controlling deception when interacting with others socially.
posted by Pal at 12:14 PM
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