In light of the recent discussions, it occurs to me how much more careful I need to be in my online communication with other people. More often than not, my online presence is informal – I usually use the Internet to talk with my friends or with a close work colleague (who know my casual style of writing). In fact, I have enjoyed rather a liberal and impulsive way of writing on the Internet for quite some time. I always considered it as a way of relaxing from the formal writing I did at work. However, in online discussions, that style of writing does not necessarily translate well. Carefully thought-out and well-written sentences must be upheld throughout the discussion to reduce the chances of causing offence.
In fairness to myself, my initial posts were well thought and carefully planned. It was only after a few posts that I began to relax a little into the discussion and started to write more liberally, perhaps to the detriment of my message.
Senge (1994:245) suggests three ways to improve personal communication:
· reflection: becoming more aware of one's own thinking and reasoning;
· advocacy: making one's thinking and reasoning more visible to others; and
· inquiry: inquiring into others' thinking and reasoning.
I am capable of all these skills, especially of reflection and inquiry. I perhaps then have to improve my skills of advocacy, i.e. by making my thinking and reasoning more visible to others. I would also add another aspect to Senge's list (or perhaps it is a part of advocacy): Cushioning (for want of a better word). I can be rather direct. So just like small talk aids the flow of a conversation in real-life, softening the email for the reader can also aid online discussions. For this, I wonder, can one change their personality? ;-)
This also reminds me of a recent discussion I had with a classmate. We talked about the early days of communicating online and how we would have occasionally ignored normal etiquette, mainly because we saw the technology as cold and did not think of the person on the other side as a real person necessarily. It was only after time and after making occasional mistakes that we started to realise that the person on the other side is a real person with feelings and that we should respect him/her. We can learn the rules but sometimes we also learn the hard way.
For more information on netiquette (online etiquette) and articles used in this blog see:
Good Online Conversation - Building on Research To Inform Practice. Sherry et al. Available as a PDF if you search Google Scholar.
Very interesting reflective insights here Maresa.This type of technology is notorious for spawning communications errors. E-mails were invented in the 1970s and people have been fighting over them since.
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