More than just people talking

A normblog reader emails:

'Just people talking'? No, there are substantial differences:

1. Conversation is far more dense on the Internet than face to face. Witness your own 'So how did the boy David do today?' - that one short question involves two diversionary links, and who knows where they might lead?

2. Internet 'talking' is completely devoid of the extra-word attributes of normal conversation, such as tone of voice, facial and bodily expressions, etc.

3. People talking on the Internet can freely adopt alternative, false or anonymous identities.

4. Partly because of the above and also because of the depersonalized nature of Internet talking, the conversations that take place are often highly emotional and vicious or simply far ruder than those on the outside.

5. I'd say that the topics of conversation are different too. In the 'real world' we might note subtle clues in a conversation and use them to avoid taking the discussion in certain directions.

Well, yes, all that too - some of which I was alluding to in the penultimate sentence of the post.

The Economist has a survey on Internet-related matters. Much of it is behind a subscription wall, but this one isn't, and nor is this one, about blogging:

[A]t least in democratic societies, everybody does have the right to hold opinions, and... the urge to connect and converse with others is so basic that it might as well be added to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

There's also an audio interview with David Sifry of Technorati.