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This is a serious problem but I don't think this is as easily solved by face to face, or telephone, communication as the author seems to think. I used to have
by tseabrooks 17y ago
This is a serious problem but I don't think this is as easily solved by face to face, or telephone, communication as the author seems to think.
I used to have a professor that claimed interpersonal communication fails 95% of the time. I now know he was using hyperbole to make a point - but it's still very often and only going to get worse from here.
The problem is we are all AWFUL are reading tone in text communication - and it's impossible to get better at it as the author points out with his example. We can only get better at communicating our intent correctly, not at interpreting the intent. This is also true of other communication though. We are very bad at reading body language, facial expressions, and all sorts of other non verbal cues. I suspect this is why the internet habit of using smilies and 'lol's began so early in the advent of the internet. A population of people who historically had more trouble than others with an already very difficult problem found an easy way to solve it in their new medium.
I think escalation in medium works most of the time is because we have more practice delivering our intent verbally . Going forward, however, I don't see any reason that might not change as younger generations get more experience with text based communication than verbal communication.
- youngian 17y agoI don't know - I sure hope we get better at communicating subtlety through text, but it seems tough. I, as a fairly sarcastic person, have struggled with this issue for years. When I'd like to throw in some light sarcasm to my online communication, my options seem to be: * Writing it straight and counting on the recipient knowing me well enough to realize that it's sarcasm - can be seriously disastrous if I miscalculated. * Markers like :P or :) - communicates my intent, but comes off as overly cheery, especially when used multiple times in the same email or post. * Something obvious like <sarcasm> tags - kind of spoils the art of it all. * Make my sarcastic claims so over-the-top that the recipient cannot help but realize I'm being facetious - usually works, but it's a broadsword where I usually prefer a shiv. I have yet to figure out a solution that allows nearly the same range of sarcastic expression as I can achieve face to face. (And yes, I really have expended a lot of effort trying to be sarcastic online)
- jackchristopher 17y ago>I used to have a professor that claimed interpersonal communication fails 95% of the time. Wiio's Laws (my favorites): 1. Communication usually fails, except by accident. 4. The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds. 6. The importance of a news item is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html