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From: szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Electronic Use (was Re: Electronic Abuse)
Keywords: Rudeness, nonverbal cues, social skills
Message-ID: <20816@crg5.UUCP>
Date: 27 Dec 90 07:25:12 GMT
References: <1990Dec16.113452.19023@wbgate.wb.com> <214@buster.ddmi.com> <115@intrbas.UUCP> <9785@as0c.sei.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc
Lines: 56

In article <9785@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> smp@sei.cmu.edu (Stan Przybylinski) writes:
>One of my colleagues at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Dr.
>Jane Siegel, did her PhD dissertation on the topic of electronic
>communication, working with Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, who have made
>a name for themselves in this area.  Their work includes empirical
>evidence that people are much more forthright electronically than they
>ever would be face-to-face.  One paper on this work is included in the
>book "Computer Supported Cooperative Work", edited by Irene Grief.

It took a PhD dissertation to figure this out?  Anybody who has read Marx, 
Dickens, Twain, Erasmus, Wolfe, or any of thousands of other good authors 
knows that people can be far more forthright with the written word from
a distance than the spoken word face-to-face, and that this "flaming" is
often more truthful and effective than face-to-face encounters.  I can get 
more good information from the net or a library in a day than from TV, 
radio, or face-to-face encounters in a year.  When writing from a 
distance, people can speak their minds.  Their thoughts, though 
not acceptable in face-to-face conversation, or communicable as sound
or image, just might be the truth.


>I know from personal experience that I have been abused on bboards,
>threatened with physical harm by people who had no business doing so,
>given our differences in physical stature (according to people who know
>both parties).

Have you gone into hiding, like Rushdie?  Perhaps your flames weren't
hot enough... :-)  Anger over the written word is often an emotional 
problem of the reader, not the writer.  A good dose of Mark Twain's 
letters should cure the problem.  :-)


>....
>It also doesn't help on the net that most of the people drawn to
>computer work are there because they lack social skills to begin with.
>;-)

And most of the e-mail & bboard phobics lack in literacy skills.  
;-)

BTW, if "netiquette" is not a social skill, I don't know what is.  
Those who have never tried electronic communication may not be
aware of what a "social skill" really is.  One social skill that must
be learned, is that other people have points of view that are not only 
different, but *threatening*, to your own.  In turn, your opinions may
be threatening to others.  There is nothing wrong with this.  Your beliefs 
need not be hidden behind a facade, as happens with face-to-face conversation. 
Not everybody in the world is a bosom buddy, but you can still have a
meaningful conversation with them.  The person who cannot do this lacks in 
social skills.



-- 
Nick Szabo		szabo@sequent.com
Embrace Change...  Keep the Values...  Hold Dear the Laughter...