[quote=“TomHill”]I am falling out of love with talking on the internet. The words just sit there, and can be interpreted in all manner of ways. You can walk away from the words, mull them over, and they are still there. It just isn’t good. And then there is the loss of tone and most vitally of body language. We pick up, what, 80% of meaning from body language and tone, and the words are of little importance. But on the internet the words are all you have, and in some cases you can’t even delete them. They just sit there, for people to fester over.
I am tired of misunderstanding and of being misunderstood. It leads to pointless silly arguments where people fall out over the dumbest of sentences.
Anybody else feel this way?[/quote]
Don’t expect verbal conversations to be any better. The problem isn’t the written form, it’s the immediacy - the less time it takes to respond, the less time people take to think about what they’re saying.
Written words - opinion columns, letters, what have you - used to be measured responses and calculated statements. When somebody said something, it was for a reason; they took their time to write it and because newspapers, letters and magazine articles took time, they weren’t in any rush. And when you received the letter or print media, you took your time reading it and mulled over what was said before responding. Nowadays because of email, SMS, chat and other immediate ways of responding, people write literally and take everything literally, and usually out of context to falsely claim something else was said. Such people are more worried about “newbies” than nuances.
In conversation, it’s worse. Just as people used to think before writing and could write with a sense of respect for others’ ideological opponents, people used to have the respect to listen to others’ opinions and be quiet while others spoke. Now you “win” arguments by outshouting people, by silencing them with noise and preventing them from talking, not by having a stronger argument.
If you think online text is bad, just look at how the media handles “debates” and “interviews”. It’s all about wasting enough time spewing lies and character assassination to prevent people from having time to talk about and address the facts. At least with online text you don’t have to deal with interruptions and challenging liars is possible, if it’s not a hit-and-run troll doing it.
