Lack of Tonal Cues in Internet Communication

[gnomi]

...or, gnomi ponders the differences between verbal and written communication.

NOTE: This is not because of any particular incident. Responding to someone else's LJ, however, pinged it in my brain.

I can tell, when I'm speaking to someone face-to-face, if they're being sarcastic (well, usually) -- there's a big difference in tone (which I'm using to mean "the way one adjusts the tone of one's voice to convey mood) between a "good luck" that means "I wish you the best of possible outcomes to the situation you're describing" and the "good luck" that means "yeah, right. That's never going to happen."

Instead of tone, therefore, we Internet denizens rely on other lexical clues, our previous interactions with the individual with whom we are communicating, and the like. This is fraught with potential pitfalls -- perhaps someone I'm angry at doesn't know it, and their perfectly innocent "good luck" runs the risk of being misinterpreted by me as a snide "good luck."

I don't have any particular solution to this issue; more, I wanted to just state it as being an issue. Because I may have misinterpreted people things e-mailed/commented to me in the past based purely based on my preconceived notions of how that person meant the statement. And for that I apologize, because it's not fair of me to do so.

Comments

[jencallisto]

one of the stanford gaming society people is doing a study sort of related to this, about how people communicate those non-verbal cues online. the survey was interesting, and made me think a bit. if you're interested, it's here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=68252710344

[running-girl4.livejournal.com]

I was never good at sociology, however I think using [smile] and LOL and :) are what keep my non-verbal skills light. I like to use [grin] or [smirk] for a more sarcastic tone.

Like I said it's not my forte but I hope people get the point when they read it. ^~^
As you noted it's not an easy problem to solve.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Well, we USED to say "Good luck to you and the Red Sox" for a sarcastic "good luck," but THAT DOESN'T APPLY ANY MORE!!!!!!!!

Heh. Sorry. Just had to squee a little at you.

Maybe we can pick on the Cubs?

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I think that's why the emoticons evolved... but that only helps so much.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool, thanks! I'll have to check it out!

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's interesting how smiley faces and *body language* have replaced facial expressions and tone-of-voice on the net, pretty much out of necessity when so much human contact occurs in pure text these days.

[neilfein.livejournal.com]

And I've seen emoticons start to show up in dead-tree media as well. Obvuiously, habits learned on the net -- brevity trumps clarity, so we've developed this shorthand -- is affecting non-net media.

Or is it the other way 'round? TV and radio news were giving sound-byte-sized stories to audiences with bite-sized attention spans long before the net became rabidly popular in the '90s.