No, I don't think that's the same thing. In my experience, real-life conversations have a much higher quantity of ... something. Affection? When I talk offline,

No, I don't think that's the same thing. In my experience, real-life conversations have a much higher quantity of ... something. Affection? When I talk offline, most conversations have a subtext of 'You're a valuable human being; I like hanging out with you.' However, when I talk on Facebook or Hacker News or email, I'm much more likely to just deal with the direct topic of conversation. Talking online is about ideas; talking offline is about people. Of course this is a massive generalization, but it seems to fit my own experiences. An interesting question, then, is why, when talking online, do I focus on ideas rather than people? I think a major factor is simply that plaintext is a far less expressive medium, so it takes extra effort to convey complicated subtexts. When we talk offline we can show interest in people without having to consciously think about it; our expressions of caring are primarily subconscious and therefore don't transfer well to plaintext.