Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!intrbas!kenn From: kenn@intrbas.uucp (Kenneth G. Goutal) Newsgroups: comp.groupware Subject: Re: 2 comments Keywords: emotional content; raw data; wealth Message-ID: <163@intrbas.UUCP> Date: 25 Jan 91 21:50:39 GMT References: <161@intrbas.UUCP> <1991Jan24.193942.8468@siia.mv.com> Sender: news@intrbasintrbas.UUCP Organization: Interbase Software Corporation Lines: 83 Nntp-Posting-Host: krebs Hi, Dave! Glad you quit lurking and jumped in! In article <1991Jan24.193942.8468@siia.mv.com> drd@siia.mv.com (David Dick) writes: > >Of course emotional content can be carried by normal text! Read >any good novels lately? The problem is that cramming emotional >content into text is very time-consuming--good writing is *hard*. Agreed. That's why the use of more bandwidth to convey audio and video is such a popular idea. "Everybody knows" that just being oneself is much easier than writing. >There seems to be an assumption that conveying emotion can be >made easier by making the bandwidth larger. See above. >That helps to some >extent but I would like to remind everyone that a few people are >much better conversationalists than the rest of us, even when we >all have "full" bandwidth. Ah! Now *there's* the rub!!!!! I was going to bring this up in a separate message immediately after my previous one, but forgot, so I'm glad you brought this up. For some of us, the use of that extra bandwidth will be a handicap, not a benefit! There are any number of reasons -- vocal qualities (harsh voice, nasal voice, difficult accent, amusing accent, speech impediment), physical appearance (age, sex, race or color, facial disfigurement), anomalies in body language (nervous tic, perpetual frown, blank stare when concentrating) -- all can contribute to conveying the *wrong* emotional content. >And we sometimes have inappropriate or embarassing emotions that >we don't want to convey (e.g., this is sure boring, but I better >continue to listen). Indeed. >Maybe rather than the picture on/off switch >for our future videophone-equivalents we'll need a bandwidth slide >switch (text on one end, full senses on the other end), depending >on how revealing we want to be :-) Of course, in text we can hide all these things in the low bandwidth. Or, if we are skilled writers, we can pretend to emotions that we don't really have. I foresee a time when full audio/video is the norm, and a. turning down the bandwidth as Dave suggested will be considered an admission of hiding something; b. faked representations will become common; and c. the richer you are, the more convincing your faked representations can be. At the moment, the crudeness of our software (text only) and the limitations of our hardware (low bandwidth) tend to be equalizers, giving those of us with any combination of the limitations I mentioned above the chance to present our views on an equal footing with those without those limitations. Those of us who wish to be convincing by dint of logic, or at least the appeal of our *ideas* find this especially beneficial. This is sort of half-way in the direction of (as I percieve it) Nick's goal of having the strength of the facts speak for themselves. Of course, the current situation *does* place a premium on being able to *write*. Those of us who write well fare better in this medium than those who don't. This is sometimes just as unfortunate as the situation where those who are mellifluous, or beautiful, or powerful fare better than those who aren't. Another time, we can discuss the advantages and disadvantages to various people of the *delay* in this medium, and how different people will have the advantage as connectivity and bandwidth move us more in the direction of real-time interactions vs the current 'batched' interactions. -- Kenn Goutal ...!linus!intrbas!kenn ...!uunet!intrbas!kenn