If you’ve done much blogging or e-mailing, you’ve likely been misunderstood — such as when the reader didn’t realize you were being sarcastic. Several researchers have been studying electronic communications, and they’ve noted three major problems with medium, The Christian Science Monitor reported: Electronic messages lack cues such as facial expression and tone of voice; instantaneous communication creates a sense of urgency for recipients to respond quickly, which can lead them to say things they shouldn’t; messaging can be impersonal, which can make relationships fragile.
In the printed newspaper, we are careful with satire and irony, because many readers will read it literally. This danger is even greater with electronic postings and messages, the researchers say.
And as several of you have noted related to the WE Blog face-to-face gatherings: People tend to be much more respectful in disagreeing about issues when they’ve met the other person.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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27 Comments
Phil, I’ll have you know I was only nice to my fellow bloggers because they all had bigger guns. I just had this little thing that wouldn’t work anyway because the CO2 cartridge was empty. It had absolutly nothing to do with facial expressions, which were mainly caused from eating hot hotdogs. Or maybe potato salad.
Well at last.
The WE acknowledges that WE bloggers exist!
I did not see any guns at the picnic! Wait a minute… How come no one told me we were suppose to bring a gun? Gee some friends you all are! That was a gun? I just thought you all were glad to see me! I don’t care how good the potato salad is I do not like potato salad and Kansas farm girl will have to bring a gun next time so she can force me to eat some and then I can say how good it was!
We are all good. :) Just spirited debate. Sometimes it gets a bit personal, but what are friends for. :)
Guy walks into a bar and pulls a tiny grand piano out of his pocket. Then he pulls out a little guy who sits down and begins to play.”Where’d ya get that?” bartender asks. “I have a magic bottle; you rub it and get a wish,” customer replies.Customer agrees to let the bartender try it, and pulls a grungy old whiskey bottle from his pocket. Bartender rubs it, and the room fills up with ducks, flying everywhere.”I didn’t wish for a million ‘ducks’,” says bartender. “So, did you think I wished for a ten-inch pianist?” responds customer.
Tracy,That joke is older than I am, and I’m rapidly approaching the age of some of our younger hills!
Jed, old is good.Never trust anyone under 30.
Hey now Tracy! I’m under 30!
Julie,I’ve never met a woman over 30!
I’m 29 and holding (for a few more months at least).I asked my hubby (who’s in his early 40’s) what it was like to be married to a sweet young thing to which he replied that I was getting too old and cynical to be considered as such and as soon as I turned 32 he’d trade me in on 2 16 year olds.Now I on the other hand can trade him in on 2 21 year olds. I can think of a lot more things to do with those then whiney pimply 16 year olds.
Julie..Just hold out a while longer.. you know we guys don’t reach our full potential until 50!Besides that, you do NOT want to be paying car insurance on 2 21 year old boys!!
Trust and admiration are two different issues.I admire youth and stamina, oh and the hardbodies (like I had years ago).Now, old is fifteen years older than however old I am at the moment.
Gosh, do you think I have been unclear in expressing my OUTRAGE for the hypocricy of having a VALUES columnist who thinks his values are so much better than the values of others?
That those who disagree with him are NOT values voters? Have I been unclear in the printed word?
Maybe I need icons. :(
Dear Julie,
Met my wife when she was 28, I was 41. Wouldn’t trade her for the world. There’s been times she would give me away though!
She keeps me young.
Hank
ICON is a four letter word.Now if we could just come up with some icons to emote our favorite curses.I like to be original with my curses. How about this:MAY YOUR THUMBS FALL OFF SO YOU CAN’T WIPE YOUR OWN ASS!!
Heheh TRACY. The cons would have to be able to FIND their own asses before they could wipe them. That is what the little people are for. You dont think they wipe their own, do you?
Just for the record. Hubby and I are teasing each other when we say we’ll trade each other in. I have no doubt of it.(I still think I’d get the better end if I did but…Love him anyway):)
Reminds of the man that traded his 40 year old wife in for two twenty year olds.
Killed him. He wasn’t wired for 220.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrep……CHING!!!!
It’s Farday, at last, may as well have a little fun.
A solution to two problems at once..this was in my email this morning…
My mailbox is being flooded with mail concerning gas prices and illegalimmigrants. To boycott oil companies or not; to provide amnesty toillegal immigrants or not, etc.Since I have become jaded to the various solutions proposed by theRepublicans, Democrats, Sierra Club, ACLU, etc. I have elected to solvethe problems as they affect me. It solves both my gas and illegalimmigrant problems.I have hired illegal immigrants to push my car.They’re plentiful, willing to work and cheaper than buying gas.
raptor, I hate to imagine what you’ll do when your tires wear out.
Raptor,
How many IPM do you get with this plan?
Every year on her birthday I would tease my wife about trading her in on a eighteen y.o. and what ever was left. Until she hit thirty and I was thirty one.Then I realized some good reasons to not trade her in:
Nature play a cruel trick and a woman hits her sexual peak at around thirty and a man starts going down hill at thirty.So I was happy with the results and she now knew how I was feeling years ago.
I was getting old enough to realize that talking to a woman could actually be as entertaining as bedding one.And the older a woman get the more sense she made.
When I said something about the “Beatles” she knew whom I was talking about and the eighteen y.o. would just say “huh?”.
This one had gotten to know me and still wanted to be in the same room, the eighteen y.o. would want to go out with her friends and I hate to dance.
By now this one knew where all the bodies are hidden so I need to keep an eye on her!
I had taught her to shoot my 357 and I did not want to make her mad!
And the most important reason….I still kind of Love her!
I’ve observed that fact in e-mail exchanges with my siblings. Perhaps that impersonality also applies to our driving habits.
Sorry for the insults, Mr. Brownlee.
I propose a new acronym dws (dripping with sarcasm@)
As someone who has used e-mail for nearly 20 years, I’d have to agree with your remarks, Phillip.
There’s something about the pseudo-anonymity of cyberspace that encourages the worst of human communication.
In a face-to-face discussion, the topic can go off the rails. For some reason–perhaps the lack of a moderator–that situation seems to happen more often online.