Do you think it's a specifically modern thing that you have to just accept?
I was reading through a protracted, painful e-mail exchange yesterday and realised I sounded like a complete nutbar. E-mail exchanges aren't a speciality, but they are the only way to communicate with some people.
I much prefer discussing things face to face or even over the phone because it adds weight to your words, plus it's harder to say horrid things which you don't actually mean.
I prefer talking to someone
I don't make so many glariningly obvious mistakes with grammar and punctuation that way. Plus, eventually I get bored of text or e-mail exchanges and don't bother ending the conversation
yes, boredom
I usually have this with text exchanges.
The only reason most e-mail exchanges go on for so long is because you actually need to TALK about something.
i agree
i've fallen out with friends over t'internet / email / msn, and i suspect if we'd actually met up face to face it wouldnt have happened.
the disconnect electronic communications gives you is wonderful, but it can be a dangerous sometimes!
SHOCKED FACE
NO WAI
i wasn't referring to mirri
ugh
this is such a horrid scenario.
i don't think the disconnect is wonderful. it makes me feel a bit sub-human, communicating in zeroes and ones.
the disconnect is great
in that you can say hello to someone you met randomly last night, or off the internet, when you would never dream of getting their phone number and calling them. there's something far less intrusive about facebooking someone...
I mean, the disconnect is bad
when you are dealing with people you know in in real life.
yeah it is
it would have been better not to have communicated at all, rather than have an msn row which blows up so quickly and irrationally
and things like tone and inflections get missed out.
I love to talk on the phone when I am in work or on my pwn but hate to do it when on the bust/train when I know that people are going to listening into what I am saying... is that because I am paranoid or just mental?
^this
i HATE talking on the phone when im sat on a bus or train etc.i just dont like people listening in to my conversations.other than that i much prefer face to face talking.
I'm terrible
at speaking to people in person. I lack those particular life skills, so the 21st century is a godsend to me.
</emo>
^ totally this
for me, depending on who i'm talking to, it usually goes internet > face-to-face > phone. i think i (mostly) come across as much more articulate/intelligent online than i do in person, because i find it a lot easier to formulate thoughts and express them in writing, whereas when talking i tend to come across as a bit of a bumbling idiot.
of course, in some situations real life conversation wins, when it's with the right people. phonecalls, on the other hand, i'm not a big fan of. they kind of have the same distant disconnected feeling as the internet (what with not being able to see each other), but with a lot of added awkwardness and no time delay to alleviate it. silences on the phone are about a thousand times more awkward than silences in person.
I am better in real life now
Used to be crap, a combination of not really caring and going mad was the reason for the change
This reminds me of theis girl I liked in 6th form.
I'm quite a shy guy but she took shyness to a whole new level. I managed to get her number off one of her friends we started texting and apparently she really liked me. Then after a couple of weeks I went over and tried talking to her, which turned out to be incredibly difficult. She couldn't even look at me and was very quiet when she did eventually say something, it was impossible. Sometimes one of her friends would say things on her behalf, it's like she couldn't speak English and had a team of interpreters.
Needless to say it didn't work out but at least I made the effort, I don't regret it despite how bloody annoying and frustrating as it was.
didn't you think she was a bit odd, though?
She seemed quite "normal" around her friends.
I hate the use of the term normal.
And she was amazingly attractive which is always a bonus. :)
Special school?
^5
^5
:D
A vital prerequisite for senior management positions
zing!
It worries me
that the only time I have arguments that seem to have any bad feeling behind them is on the internet. I can discuss and disagree with people IRL WHICH SANDS FOR IN REAL LIFE till the cows come home, but very rarely does it get to the point where I feel like the person I'm talking to is an absolute Joey Deacon, and that I would very happily tell them this.
This happens with alarming regularity on the internet.
I think it's partly to do with the mode of communication; but also perhaps that you're exposed to a wider range of people and opinions.
There's a lot of research out there about granularity of communications, too. Turned out (I think) that phone calls weren't always the best ways of getting lots of information across; emails and text are better. A phone call or face-to-face is better for small issues that are open to misinterpretation. So I think we're in a less-than-ideal situation where we've lots of people in our generation using a pretty poor mode of communication to deal with emotive and importnat stuff.
Do emails = letter writing? I don't think so. There's always been a certain weightiness to letter writing that you don't get with the instant back-and-forthness of internet communications.
shit. sorry. is there delicious irony in me writing a tedious overlong post about this?
SO DELICIOUS OM NOM NOM
yeah, chomp that irony toffee
Letter-writing really is the best thing - need to do it more.
Arguments really do escalate massively on the internet.
Twat.
An argument
by post would be a slow-burning affair, wouldn't it? In fact aren't there cases of renowned scientists and philosophers having awesome protracted postal debates by mail? I don't think anyone's going to be compiling the _vikram thread into a leather bound volume in 50 years time.
You massive Joey Deacon.
I like this idea!
Yeah, a lot of e-mail debates are:
you said this
anyway i was saying
but
yeah, what did you say
i didn't say
anyway, i don't care
neither do i
oh i forgot to say this
what did you say
at least with letters one-sidedness is more eloquent and thoughtful. I would like to read some letter exchanges between philosophers. It seems like a very cream tea thing to do.
Dick legs.
And then after
you've pulled everything apart and argued every point so thoroughly that no possible positive resolution can come of it (at best, you might both have learned a variety of new things that you dislike about each other), you put your head in your hands and weep for the disgrace of having had an argument in bullet points.
Pissy tits.
indeed
Penis ears.
Prolapse nose
Part of the reason for this,
Is that people don't care as much about what other people think about them. It's also a great place to DiScuss controvertial issues.
The debates are more frequent therefore causing more arguments, there's less need to be careful about what you say.
There is also more chance of misinterpreting what someone else is saying or reacting badly to what was supposed to be a joke.
I really reckon though
that the whole thing of people 'not caring what others think of them' on INZERNET FORA is a pretty small effect (considering how often people say it). This place has a social circle, and everyone with a post count of more than 20 has a self-perception of their own image on here. The ones who really don't give a shit are the trolls who dip in, cause a fuss, and meander somewhere else.
What I do think, however, is that people have more confidence in what they say because they can be 'someone else;' someone apart from everyday life. Which is, partly, about not caring what people think of you; because of the (possibly mistaken) idea that you could 'just walk away from it all.'
yeah
i bet you are a quivering wreck in 'real life'...
I'm a frank spencer type figure
"betty done a whoopsie on the veranda"
^ LOLZ
i can totally imagine that
I don't know whether to feel complimented or insulted
the latter OBVS
feel complimented
i think...!
You stupid twat.
Aside from the freaks who meet up in real life, people don't really know each other on message boards. Therefore people can say exactly what they want with little to no consequence.
Just because they don't know
each other in real life doesn't mean that people won't care how they're perceived. Look at the type of dramas you usually see on here: not so much the last one, as that was a rare case of something happening in reality. Still, though, those were two people who'd never met, getting incredibly heated over an apparently 'inconsequential' event.
In the past
Human beings commeunicated over vast distances using instruments that created loud sounds or smoke signals.
Capitalism forced humans together making them communicate face-to-face. This form of communication is unnatural to the human race, essentially a race of loners.
The internet has allowed humans to return to their former and more natural way of communicating.
did you not find using smoke signals a bit awkward though?
I'm not funny in smoke signals
whereas im hilarious face to face
In the old days
all smoke signal messages floating past your window:
"THERE'S THIS GIRL"
10 minutes later:
"AT THE WAGON STOP"
Email is so dangerous
it scares me. Everything sounds really blunt and harsh, and there's no interpretation from body language or anything whatsoever.
I fell out with a girlfriend and she subsequently refused to answer the phone and rejected emailed requests to meet up, and I really wanted to put my point across so emailed her. It ended up being a long messy email exchange which made it even worse. Stupidest thing I did in ages.
I just went
through one of these email exchanges, and got brilliantly nasty. I took a step back and realised I had read all the wrong things into what the other person had said, and had to have an incredibly convoluted 'lets sort things out' conversation. argh, totally avoidable, fuck the email.
I love any communication
from smoke signals, messengers on horseback, carrier pigeon, sign language, singagrams, webcams, gunpoint.
There's obviously different forms of conventions and ettiquettes for each one. ie don't shoot if someone has their back to you. Or, don't use capital letters