Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, my fellow crawlbots…

There is one thing, I tended to think about in the last days. Its how nerds or freaks in general communicate. I asked myself about blogging many times. I even asked myself, if its necessary, to broadcast my feelings into the net, let everyone read it, etc. I do not want to explain that here and now and I, even less, want legitimate my blog here and now. I just want to tell you all, what development I fearfully noticed.

• There is too less real face to face communication – That makes conversations flat and even very confusing most of the time. If I want to send my friends information about whats going on on the next weekend, its ok for me to tell them over Instant Messenger (from now on called IM) or my Mail or even by IRC or SMS, BUT: Human communication, from my very own point of view, consists of much more than just words. Its the kind of speech someone pronounces, what he says, theres his face, there are speed, tone and his allround appearance that tell me, how he feels… in general or in the thing he talks about. Over the listes media, for example irony or a joke can be easily misunderstood. Freaks created a new *subtransport* to emulate all the missing face to face communication elements. Smilies or actions are just examples. “I just hate you.” or “I just hate you +hug+” *sound* very different I think.
• Behaviour in indirect communication can be easily misunderstood – If we have an instand messenger conversation and I leave the PC for a short visit at the toilet or for lunch, I say “afk”, to inform my conversational parner about my absence. I do that, because I, at first, don’t want the other side to feel abandoned or just not taken seriously enough. The biggest misunderstandings in the last year while using internet communication resulted from caro, leaving the computer in a hurry, without leaving a notice (which is absolutely normal, but I had gotten used to people, who leave a notice). One cause for those misunderstandings was, that our appreciation of the talk was very different. I took it like a normal face to face talk, she took the media (in this case an IM) as a media for short information… I guess. People who talk over indirect media too much might, in my opinion, be in danger of loosing sight on the normal communication principles, like the mentioned face to face things. Likewise, people, who are not familiar with the new media communication might be in danger of being easily mistaken or of easily mistake things said. Its a long process…
• New media communication is much more carefree than face to face – The fact that in the new media communication, people do not have to face each other directly during they talk, the things they say are often said much more carefree. That is sometimes very good, especially when I think of all the mails I had with Hannah, who once was a very good friend of mine, when I had a lot of emotional trouble. Back then I was able to talk freely without being embarressed. Its hard for me to do that in moments of talking face to face. I remember many moments, when I wanted to tell somebody something important, but couldn’t, because I didn’t dare to talk in that situation. I always had to force myself or took the new media way as a fallback. When I look at this, I am a little sad about it, because I like to talk to people, who understand what I am saying very mucht. Especially when I can trust them. Likewise there are easily made vituerpations on new media communications, because we often do not fear the reaction. If we do not want to be confronted with the reaction of the opposite side, we just turn off our mobile, disconnect the computer or hang up. Mails may be deleted unread, IM contacs can be ignored etc. I suppose, we often loose sight of the fact that there (until now) always is a real human on the other side, who can be hurt by words (some more easily than others), actions or just silence. A few months ago, I talked about trouble in the LugX, where a lot of mails were exchanged in a rapidfire discussion. 90% of them were impertinent and totally off topic insults. I was very surprised, ’cause I hadn’t seen this kind of behaviour in the reallife meetings. I think this, and some discussions and shortsighted IRC insult battles (just join a linux channel on freenode IRC and say “I use vi, emacs sucks”. You will probably witness one of the oldest Top10 Flamewars in new media communication, the battle about which editor (vi oder emacs) is best) are one of the best examples for this. Who would do this during a conference? … I don’t know.
• New Media Communication lacks emotional resonance – If I talk about my feelings over the new media communication transports, there are no ways I can really feel safe or be comforted. It all just seems to be an emulation of real comfort, of real exchange of emotions. Every time I realize, that the one I talked to isn’t really there, I get even more sad or pensive. Its a hard end, if I want to help someone, too. Theres always this “I can’t be there to help you but let me tell you…”-Feeling that keeps me and the person on the other side wondering, why distances even exist. I feel even more helpless, if I know, that the person on the other side is crying and I can’t do anything about it, not even embrace him or her. Its just no use.

These are the thougts that go through my head… I hope, next time you talk to someone and just lack words to say the things you want to or if you chat over the internet and you are, again, misunderstood, this can help you. Its all just result of my thoughts, my opinions and free of scientific analysis. Feel free to comment.

Now… really sleep in peace

Your Starseeker