Now that I have delved into the amenities of text-based communication, let me initially make a brief note of weblogs, which find themselves somewhere in between emails and instant messages. Not only do they offer the possibility to have a conversation with oneself (thus making them comparable to emails), but also with the public (á la IMs). The advantages of blogs compared to each of the other two channels are the following: First, they offer the room to elaborate on thoughts without necessitating simultaneous recognition of and attention to the receiver, thus making them superior to IMs. Second, they are a low threshold tool for publishing; even though the words that are put down usually have relatively private, even intimate content, they are not only intended for a single receiver; rather, the blogger (more or less consciously) recognizes that the potential audience may reach almost infinite numbers – or to put it as bluntly as Nardi: Blogging is a social activity or would you let 900 million people read your diary? I will return to the concept of utterly staggering levels of self-disclosure and –presentation online at some later point in time. As concerns blogs, they are somewhat protected places because of their asynchronous nature, comparable to emails, however, they still offer the tendency to be used as social means of communication.
Let me now turn to something else I have not paid adequate attention to in my previous intermezzo. When I was thinking about the discontents of text-based communications, the primary issue I was dealing with was that of miscommunication, misrepresentation and –interpretation of the message. The discontents this entails are out of question. Another issue did not appear to me then: Disembodiment. To a certain extent I mentioned it with the lack of facial expression and gestures, which convey large amounts of information on top of the transmitted verbal accounts. This, I think, is quite apparent. But, what’s even more, is the ultimate need not only to look into your conversation partner’s eyes and watch their impression of what you say on their face, but text-based communication furthermore disallows any physical contact with the other person while you’re communicating. Different cultures will of course set certain limits to how people touch each other while communicating; if you were simply to compare how people in the North greet each other with a simple nod of their heads to how Southerners kiss and hug each other even when they’ve just seen the other the night before (please excuse the simplification, that’s just for the purpose of bringing my point across).
The content of the conveyed message may necessitate some degree of physical contact. Sometimes you just want to hug your friend when they tell you about a sad message they’ve just received or when they proclaim that they are getting married next month. Virtual communication, whether text-based or including visual channels such as webcams, does not allow for anything comparable. I may want to integrate the concept of telepresence when speaking of virtual communication and extend the initial concept of text-based virtual communication to including further channels.
Disembodiment online can have the consequence of distant, detached, even sterile communication; it’s not merely a matter of touch, but also tone of voice. The fine nuances of the latter will not be adequately transmitted via voice-over-IP most of the time either, not to mention the olfactory or gustatory channel. Odors are strong evocators of memories and may thus manifest a feeling of belongingness and attachment between communicators. (Again I must excuse the terminology; from the perspective of communication or media studies it appears to make quite some sense speaking of “communicators” while for a psychologist this seems less appropriate. I promise to come up with terms that appear more fluid and natural as soon as I’ve set my brain on that track.) To quote an intuitive participant in one of my studies: Nothing compares to a real kiss. No matter how deep and intimate a virtual conversation is, no matter what kinds of intimate and (cyber)erotic messages are exchanged, nothing will compare to that other person’s unique touch.
Emails are for business, blogs are for publishing and IMs are for chatting. Face-to-face talk is for bonding. In so many ways.
The communicators I was referring to before were friends, people who are close to each other, who stay in contact via various channels. The story is quite a different one when we start talking about strangers, people who may meet each other online initially. Disembodiment in this sense offers a variety of incentives; as a famous comic puts it: Online, no one knows you’re a dog. It’s true. In a chat room, forum or MMORPG, no one knows your age, gender, race, educational background, financial status, you name it. This gives you the freedom to explore your identity, to genderbend, to take on personas which are entirely different from your up-to-then taken-for granted self. For tremendously insightful revelations you may be referred to Sherry Turkle, a cybershrink, who never shied away from adopting her knowledge of the psyche and translating it from the real (well, in psychopathology “real” comes to denominate as little of a clear construct as “normal” does) to the virtual. Exploration and the transgression of (culturally, environmentally imposed) boundaries are the key elements for people to experiment with their identities. Many will find new parts of their selves, hidden identities, alter egos, which they may never have thought of before. What a joy to be online! It’s a bit like changing countries and starting from zero in a new environment where nobody really knows who you are. You come to be who you wish to be. And there are no limits whatsoever imposed on you on the Internet. Accordingly, I do look forward to my potential interviewee’s thoughts on this!
Let me leave you with this: Exploration online via disembodiment opens doors of which you never knew that they existed. Embodiment, on the other hand, endows you with physical contact.
Sometimes all you need is a hug.
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