> Actually, the body of this post does not reflect my REAL feelings. In the
> long run I think posts with this kind of tone are more likely to hinder
> learning in our community than help. It seems to me the tone is as
> important as the substance -- or lack of substance -- for achieving a
> learning environment. There is an escalation, too, from "law of the
> single click," to "the posts are too long or theoretical for me," to "the
> posts are too xxx for all of us," to "such posts are crap," to "your posts
> are sh-t,"...
Hi Gang!
I'd like to share a few insights from the social psychologists who have
studied electronic communication as to why this occurs.
The first insight is a process called 'social disinhibition'- often when
one is replying to a message, one is physically alone. As our social
cueing is a product of untold thousands of years of social and physical
evolution of which email has been present for only 15-20 years, we revert
to the ingrained social patterns. That is, when we're alone we are much
less inhibited than when in the physical presence of others. This has
been fairly well studied as one of the roots of 'flaming'. This
'disinhibition' carries over into the electronic communication. It's much
like throwing a private temper tantrum that we would never do in front of
others. While intellectually we know that many others will read our
message, emotionally we do not and react and write as if we were in
private.
The second insight comes from Rich Media Theory. Email is what is
referred to as a lean media. That is the normal social cues that we would
get in face to face conversation are absent. Thus it is very easy to
misinterpret the intention behind a message and judge it as more harsh or
judgmental than the sender intended. This is exacerbated by the time lag
between message and response. In a real time conversation one can
immediately question and clear the air, if it happens to be face to face,
often the body language tells the story and no clearing is necessary.
With about a day elapsing between the message and a reply there are many
opportunities to climb the ladder of inference.
The strong international flavor of this list is another contributing
factor. As there are many people who speak very different idiomatic
versions of English, or English isn't their first language, there is a
great possibility to misinterpret an expression that is transparent to the
writer. This is much more than just idiom, but culture both national and
personal. As a recent example, some people reacted very strongly to the
idea that Hitler might have been a good leader (from an amoral
perspective) and others did not exhibit the emotional loading. Clearly
some deep stuff was being tapped! I would also speculate that some
cultures tend to be more verbose than others. Other factors such as
'getting right to the point' vs. placing the message within a historical
context, and being impersonal vs. sharing personal history relevant to the
subject would also be culturally influenced.
I think one of the learning from all this is that diversity is far more
than just who is Asian, Black, Gay etc- but realizing that we are all
diverse. Thus if one finds oneself getting angry over a posting, maybe
some warning flags should go up that it could be both a diversity issue,
and/or the old ladder of inference.
Ed Rosch
earosch@home.com
--Ed Rosch <earosch@home.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>