Conveying Tone & Gender
Monday, August 3, 2009 by rs09
With relation to some of the information that was presented in lectures and tutorials on gender; it got me thinking. Some elements of communication are lost and gained by in the online world and and some elements are also gained. This is also apparent in texting. An element which could be lost (maybe others would disagree) is that of conveying tone in digital communication. One finds it increasingly harder to express tone of voice and ofcourse body language in texts. A simple exclaimation mark does not have the same effect as stressing a point or yelling at a person during a face-to-face conversation. It is through this that a sense of ambiguity is created partially due to the fact that the persons facial expressions or voice is not present to be studied by the receiver. This leads to sometimes people not fully understanding what the sender truely meant in their texts. Such as 'You're funny' is almost impossible to differenciate in text communication yet in a face-to-face conversation it is much easier to understand the context based on the senders supposed 'truth-value' in the voice or the sarcasm. This is also relevant to things such as email or online chat amongst others.
Now to Gender, i havent done extensive research in this area obviously but i would like to mention some things which i have noticed amongst the texting and online interaction of my friends. With many of my male friends, the texts or online chats (very rare) seem to be directed at instructions or information texts. Such as what time i can meet them, If they are coming to class etc. So the texts and responses are very short and informative, much like the new craze of 'Tweets'. However with many of my female friends the texts received are often much longer almost reaching the 160 character limit and tend to include information and as well as 'culture' or 'well-being' texts to ask how i am, When i am able to see them etc. The texts from the female friends seem to be more open ended and question like. However whilst writing this i have just realised that there is only a one-way overlapping in that i respond to my female friends texts often as i would to my male friends with one word responses and information (Intrestingly this often angers them) However i do not respond to my male friends in the way my female friends text me. So even though there is two genders texting me, the response is always solo gendered and not catered for both genders.
Now to Gender, i havent done extensive research in this area obviously but i would like to mention some things which i have noticed amongst the texting and online interaction of my friends. With many of my male friends, the texts or online chats (very rare) seem to be directed at instructions or information texts. Such as what time i can meet them, If they are coming to class etc. So the texts and responses are very short and informative, much like the new craze of 'Tweets'. However with many of my female friends the texts received are often much longer almost reaching the 160 character limit and tend to include information and as well as 'culture' or 'well-being' texts to ask how i am, When i am able to see them etc. The texts from the female friends seem to be more open ended and question like. However whilst writing this i have just realised that there is only a one-way overlapping in that i respond to my female friends texts often as i would to my male friends with one word responses and information (Intrestingly this often angers them) However i do not respond to my male friends in the way my female friends text me. So even though there is two genders texting me, the response is always solo gendered and not catered for both genders.