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Pastimes : Discuss Go2Net's acquisition of our beloved SI
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To: David Lawrence who wrote (333)5/2/1998 12:10:00 PM
From: Stephen Kahn  Read Replies (2) of 446
 
There are quite a few reasons why people don't post. Here are a couple of likely ones. I'm an adult education instructor. I'm used to speaking in front of groups of people, and as long as I'm dealing with a subject I'm comfortable with, I don't feel much stress with public speaking.

I've had teaching assistants who were intelligent, knowledgeable, and personable. As long as they were tutoring people one-on-one they were comfortable, but the thought of speaking in front of a group petrified them. Fear of public speaking is wide-spread. Partly this is because many people have little training and experience in public speaking. But it's also because many people underestimate their own abilities and exaggerate the negativity of an audience. And, of course, we've seen public speaking fiascos involving others and they leave a lasting impression.

Posting in a bulletin board is something like public speaking, (with e-mail akin to a one-to-one conversation). If anything, an on-line audience is more threatening for many because it's faceless.

A further intimidating factor is that message posting resembles driving in that a small but significant portion of the participants feel free to behave much worse than they do in everyday personal interactions. One doesn't have to read very many messages in almost any topic to encounter "modem rage" (the on-line equivalent to "road rage"). If someone is doubtful about posting, reading a few choice insults is sufficient to keep him or her lurking in the shadows.

For quite a few people, this is an intimidating environment, and when the robust participants berate lurkers them for not posting, their well-intentioned criticisms probably have the opposite effect much of the time. Yelling at people not to be shy seldom gets them out in the middle of the party.
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