Subtleties

• Hello! A Few Observations by Doug William, Ph.D., 3/23/98
  • re: Hello! A Few Observations by Phil Farber, 3/27/98
    • John Suler by John Suler, 3/29/98
      
      

John Suler writes:
I agree: there ARE many subtleties in typed text. but I think you might be stretching the argument a bit. Surely, in f2f meetings there is far more interpersonal sensory information than in text-only cyberspace meetings - especially visual and auditory (voice) cues.

To some extent, you still get visual and auditory cues, mostly through verb predicates and sensory based languaged. Agreed, the variety of sensory input is smaller, but within the narrowed focus of text, I've yet to be convinced that there is less subtlety. I think it's more a case of most of us not being used to identifying unconscious communication in text. Think of it this way... in a face to face encounter the verbal portion of the communication, in many cases, is less (in terms of quantity), while we attempt to rely on visual, auditory, and kinesthetic information. I suspect there is some upward limit to the amount of processing that the unconscious mind can handle (though it is likely a very large amount of processing, relative to conscious communication). That quota is, perhaps, filled by a greater variety of sensory modes, but the sum total is likely the same.

As a writer who has been obsessed with the subtleties of textual communication long before I ever got online, this remains something I'm keenly aware of... Take a look at some of your favorite writers to find text that is dripping with unconscious information. Personally, I don't think most face to face encounters have the richness of, say, James Joyce. Most of us do not write with that kind of density, but it is certainly possible.

Although email and chat therapy is possible, and people are doing it, almost everyone agrees that it can't be nearly as effective as in-person therapy, due to the ambiguities resulting from the lack of f2f cues.

At one time almost everyone agreed that the world is flat, too... doesn't mean that's the case. I think people just haven't learned to master the form yet. (Just in general, I think reading and writing skills of most high school and college graduates in the last 10 or 20 years are fairly poor.) On the other hand, by the time people do learn to master ascii therapy, videoconferencing will likely have become a lot more common so I suspect we'll never fully explore that modality.

Onward,
Phil
Phil's Page O'Hype

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