IM. Something's Missing.

The idea from this post comes from this NY Times article. The article deals mostly with how people are ruder, more impolite, and use vulgar words more often when they are communicating online rather than in person. It briefly goes over how when we talk online there are no facial cues. There are emoticons but that's as effective as soda after eating a chili pepper. To go along with this there is that quote that 90% or some outrageous % of communication is non-verbal. If this is true then we must be missing something while talking online.

The most direct connection I made with this is instant messenging (IM). We use AIM so often to talk to our friends and family we assume so much of the non verbal communication that is happening. Right now as you are reading this you are probably speaking to one or many people online at the same time. Every message you send you make it fit your personality or the tone of the conversation. As you are typing your message, you can see yourself saying the words and what facial expressions you attach. The same goes for receiving. Your friend who just Im'd you attached there own facial expressions and non verbal communication devices to that message as well. It is amazing how we take this for granted.

We process every message we send or receive with specific non verbal cues which are not being received on the other side with great equality. How many times have you had to say online the obligatory "lol" or "j/k" since the person misunderstood your message? This probably happens more often than those times that are so obscene which you must include those message justifiers. When you are IMing with a close friend of yours you can pick up on what emotional meanings they have behind there words and can probably guess the other social cues they would be giving you along with that message. What about those times you speak online with people you don't know that well or never met (odd situation but stay with me)? We are using our past social interactions and online messenging to pull out what non verbal cues that person is trying to attach to there message. A more familiar situation would be having a conversation online with someone you know fairly well discussing a topic that you have never spoke about in person. Although you have more face-to-face experience with them you are still creating what cues are attached to there messages, still creating what facial expressions they would have said that with.

If anyone has an opinion on this post a comment.