Online Non-Verbal Communication

non-explicit and non-verbal communication in text "on the internet, can we punch someone" http://ariflynn.blogspot.com/2015/02/flip-thap.html

Why does this matter?

• Produce a community of people with shared language or way of communicating is important
• text for conversational flow to distinguish voice and tone in a community
• Give a broader range of expressions, expand what's possible

Non-explicit and non-verbal communication in text

• There are things that are not said in our in-person communications
• These things are literally not there, that cannot be translated
• You lose the eye roll or the body language
  • *eye roll*
• How do we read in between the lines in text?
• How do we translate our intentions?

Ways we do things to show what we mean, online

• parenthetical asides
• put everything in JSON
• visual drawings
• emoticons - add facial expessions
• white space as a tool to represent space or time or rhythm
• page layouts
• rules of engagement // class structures // to keep people engaged
• Bold, italic
• ALL CAPS
• internet dialects
• text-speak
• text-based communications
  • "555" ha ha ha
  • 4649
  • I hv sth 4 u
• font size
• casing
• kerning, letter spacing
• color of text
• white space
• superscript/ subscript
• hashtags
• dialects
• +, ways to show I'm listening and a signal of agreement
• creation of personality
• footnotes
• use of font and word spellings to imply meanings, OK, k, okay
• use of links
• color, psychological and cultural

Things to consider

• A large part of the internet has a built in reward system with false positives.
• Building web of trust in word choice and the way you say things.
• You can do things with text that you can't do things with conversation.
• What happens with language // accessibility
• how do we have a "oh you know what i mean button"
• what's left out in text-only relationships?
• how is time used? and history + context carried over time?
• Archive knowledge vs. Real time
• archive.org
• Other stress responses:
  • Fight
  • Flight
  • Freeze
  • Appease
• What are appropriate stress responses?