Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!limbo!taylor
From: martin@netcom.uucp (Martin Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Too Much Computer is bad
Message-ID: <969@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 10 Jul 90 07:17:13 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
Lines: 30
Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

Esther Lumsdon responds to my previous article with the comment: 

> I find it _no_ more difficult to be civil/courteous/polite via e-mail
> than face to face.  I feel more _connected_ via e-mail, not more isolated.

Maybe I was not clear.  I was refering to a type of emotional
isolationism.  E-mail is a lot like a FAX machine, you can contact
someone while they are out.  But unlike a phone or being in person, you
cannot get any emotional input from the person.   There have been
studies (no references) that say that 80-90% of what is communicated is
is done by body language and inflections in the voice.  E-mail has none
of this.

> I do not think that e-mail technology is promoting a type of isolationism.
> I believe that many people will become confrontative faster in e-mail
> than they will in person as a result of trends in our society that are
> unrelated to e-mail technology.  

While I do not believe that e-mail technology causes the isolationism, I
feel that it definitely exacerbates it.  People can hide behind the
computer.....they are dealing with an inanimate object, not a person.  I
have had people say some pretty mean things over e-mail, and then talk to
me later as if nothing happened.  

People disconnect the technology as a way to communicate with another person.  
The delayed response also has something to with this, since you do not
have immediate feedback, you are disconnected emotionally to what you are
writing.

Martin Hall