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From: martin@netcom.uucp (Martin Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Too Much Computer is bad
Message-ID: <979@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 12 Jul 90 01:17:44 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
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Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

In response to Elizabeth Zwicky:

> I spent some time just after I moved to California without a phone, and 
> did all my communication with friends and family via e-mail.  Certainly 
> I got a lot of emotional input that way. (In fact, for much of the year 
> most of my contact with my father is via e-mail, and we are hardly un-
> emotional.) 

I am not saying that it is impossible to communicate emotional messages
in an e-mail.  My original message mentioned the use of :-) and :-( for
denoting sarcasm and sadness.  I would suggest that with family and
friends that you have set up a type of underlying communication that you
can communicate with them.  Your family especially is already going to
be clued in to your idiosynchracies.  A co-worker or someone out on
USENET likely may not be simarly clued in.  They are less likely to be
clued in.  Further, I think that one is less likely to inadvertantly
flame someone that they are emotionally connected to...

> Another large chunk of it goes as cues for interactivity ("you
> can interrupt me now" "I am still listening to you" "I am trying to
> interrupt you now") Spoken speech tends to be more telegraphic and
> error-prone than written; people leave things out, or make mistakes
> that they have time to edit out in writing. 

These mistakes and errors are communicating something.  If you ask me to
do something and I say 'No'. Over e-mail this may appear final,
especially if you do not know me.  But on the phone or in person, you
might hear me go, "Hmmmmm, well......, no".  You won't likely take this
as final and may decide to make a modified offer.  

>...  one person's idea of mean may be another person's idea of having an
>interesting intellectual argument. (I have seen this happen in face-to-face 
> conversations as well, with people telling me "So-and-so thinks I'm stupid 
> and can't make a contribution" when I was able to verify that So-and-so 
> merely thought they were temporarily incorrect.

I think what I was trying to say is being lost.  In essence, what I am
saying is that e-mail has a tendency to promote miscommunication.  There
are number of ways in which we compensate for it.  My original argument
about emotional isolationism, I think is still valid.  If we were to get
to the point where primary communication was through e-mail, we would
likely see a deterioration in relationships.  There is a need for body
langauge and intonations, especially in casual conversation.  If a
person is known to you, then you probably can pick up much of what they
are communicating solely from the words.

Martin L.W. Hall