U on chat? lol
No.
My concerns are twofold; firstly, the simple clumsiness of it. You either spend half the conversation staring at your screen waiting for words to come up (which, sometimes, never do), or you’re forever switching in and out of the conversation – making for very poor conversation. I guess if the words came up in real-time, without people having to commit each sentence, that might be less dysfunctional.
But my real deep hatred of it comes from the dehumanising divorce of sufficient physical interaction to feel any kind of social connection. It’s common for people to type lol without their mouth so much as twitching. That’s a PhD right there. I’ve had some quite serious, quite personal conversations on IM, and the ultimate result was emptiness set in 10-point Arial.
Having said that, I do have Skype at work. Handy for sending URLs around.
Interesting point of view, Dave, and I share it to some degree. I would like to bring up some points for consideration, however:
1. Sometimes the disconnect about which you speak is actually desirable. Some communication – such as your sharing of links at work – is more about passing information from one person’s brain (or clipboard) to another’s than it is about connecting socially.
2. Written communication gives one time to absorb the information that is being received and produce a considered response. I know that written communication is not everyone’s cup of tea, but personally I find it superior to verbal communication for succinctly expressing my ideas.
3. With instant messaging it is possible to “chat” to several people concurrently. There exists a trade-off, however, between the quantity and quality of interactions.
4. I am amazed by the speed with which language evolves in the online community. You mention lol being used in situations where no one is actually laughing. As far as I’m concerned, lol has gone beyond its literal meaning to encapsulate the notion: “that’s funny”. I am not against this at all. In fact, I’ve recently taken to using the term “lolbad” (as in, “Windows is lolbad”) in both written and verbal communication because it so neatly encapsulates the notion: “laughably bad”.
Comment by David Chambers — May 5, 2009 @ 12:44 am
Isn’t that was the word Idiom is for? But can lol be called an idiom it has to first be recognised as a word. If it isn’t a word, why are we using it?
What I don’t like about internet chat is that it promotes:
1) bad spelling
2) bad grammar
However these things aren’t solely on the shoulders of IM.
The bigger picture (if your in the know) is texting…o im sry…I ment txtin
Texting among children (and adults) is perhaps now the primary way of talking to each other. Parents will limit their children to computer/internet use. But with $10 (a month) text they go hard.
But I am digressing.
Long story short. I don’t mind chatting online. The thing I don’t like is things getting lost in translation (this includes emotions!).
Comment by Enchante — May 6, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
Then there are those of us with hearts of black coal. I do not like people. Sometimes Internet People are better. Of course, I am now a stunted, perverse, shuffling creature, with bad posture, weakened limbs, and rivers of drool. But I am happy with the permanent twilight of curtained mid-days and the conversations which are not really human-talk; more like acting as the conciousness of some vast alien brain…
lol.
Comment by Wyatt Gwyon — May 6, 2009 @ 5:40 pm
David Chambers: I didn’t really think there were any situations where social bonding is undesirable. Also, while I’m all for “considered responses,” sadly chat is not their home.
Enchante: Your conclusion seems self-contradictory? The entire problem with chat is what gets lost.
Wyatt: Always a pleasure. Sorry to hear it didn’t work out with the bucket.
Comment by db — May 11, 2009 @ 6:08 pm