Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (27406)	12/29/1998 11:01:00 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 108807

I prefer not seeing people. I feel much freer not knowing who you are or what you look like. If you looked very distinguished I might be afraid to speak freely to you. If you were scary looking I might just be afraid of you altogether. I can only speak for myself, but I find that the anonymity of writing makes me think harder about the words and less about the audience. Once I see you, and you become real, then my natural tendency to please will come into play and I will become more worried about you liking me than I am about what I am actually saying. This causes me to turn into a parrot.

To: nihil who wrote (27406)	12/29/1998 11:54:00 AM
From: Edwarda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

You know, I am not so sure that I am in a great rush to have teleconferencing at the flick of a video cam. Nor was I enthusing about it when we first saw it for the telephone. True, one can read nuances when one can see a person's face and read the body language; but the ability to do so does not prevent the violence that people perpetrate on one another now. The anonymity seems to serve many purposes. The banter on some of the threads probably could not occur if the participants could see one another. (It also allows for utterly appalling behaviors, as I am sure you have seen in some postings!) What I find fascinating is how each mode of communication elicits something different. What I mean is, just as telephone conversations are different from face-to-face communications and from letters, in content and style. So, too, are e-mail and online chat different from bulletin board postings. In a somewhat extreme example, a lover and I one afternoon found ourselves simultaneously communicating via e-mail, talking on the telephone, and chatting online; we left cyberspace to have dinner together in person. The tone and texture of each communication was different.