Recenlyt I engaged in a discussion about the types of interpersonal interactions that occur on social networking sites. Mikkel Michelsen made a point about the frivolous nature of online interaction; "Whenever it's something serious, you almost always keep it to yourself"
His comment left me wondering; since online interaction lacks the human elements of empathetic facial responses, body language, and touch, will social networking media be relegate to only the more frivolous types of interpersonal communication? I think the fact that we tweet silly things like our meals or a good hair day, while keeping serious events to ourselves is based on existing social norms. For example, when something really difficult happens like illness or death, people don't leave a messages, they wait till they can get the person on the phone or face-to-face. Even in person, you might not mention a sad situation to most people you encounter because it's too heavy. What can they do about it anyway? Why bring them down? Really serious, life and death issues, especially very sad or challenging experiences are usually only shared with a small group and most often those exchanges take place face to face. My Sister and I are "friends" on a Facebook, and other bunch of social network sites but there are certain sad, difficult things we only discuss face-to-face. Maybe this is because hard topics are best handled with the added information of empathetic facial responses or no words at all. When someone tells you they have cancer, a meaningful tweet or a heartfelt email can never compete with a hug. I decided to move the discussion here (from Facebook) because I'm interested to hear what our community has to say on the subject. Thoughts? Kind regards, Angel Anderson ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
