Communication
Apr. 8th, 2003 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerI've been thinking about the different kinds of communication that I engage in, specifically how the internet has opened up new methods of communication that have a very different flavour to those that existed before.
Let me, for the sake of argument, divide communication into two types - synchronous and asynchronous.
Synchronous communication occurs when two people engage in a conversation at the same time. They begin the conversation, exchange messages and then end it. Both people have to be involved all the way through and waiting for a reply for more than a few seconds is unusual and can cause offence (which is why people hate call-waiting).
Asynchronous communication involves one person at a time. Messages are sent and then the connection is dropped. Whether a letter is being posted, an email is sent or a message left on an answering machine, the sending of the message doesn't require anything from the person at the other end. There's a tacit acceptance that it may take a significant amount of time before a reply is received.
One advantage of asynchronous communication is that it can be multiplexed - several conversations take place at the same time. I'm currently involved in an indeterminate number of email conversations - somewhere between 3 and 10, involved between 3 and 5 people. Because the messages are static (i.e. they don't vanish in time) they can be passed around, allowing multiple people to respond to the same message over a period of time.
Instant Messenger falls somewhere in-between asynchronous and synchronous, in that while there is definitely a 'conversation' as opposed to a series of messages, each message is discrete and non-interruptible. In addition multiple conversations can take place in the context of the meta-conversation, as one of the members of the conversation can ask several questions or digress at a tangent, leaving both threads simultaneously active. I've frequently wanted a tree-view of a conversation I'm engaged in, so that I can see just the branch I'm replying to and not the multiple different branches displayed in a simple list.
Journal entries are even more asynchronous than emails. Emails generally anticipate a reply, whereas journals are pronouncements and usually don't need to be responded to. This doesn't mean that all emails are supposed to be replied to or that no journals request comments, but it's not their general mode. While the journal entry may be time specific, comments on them are frequently also non-conversational taking the form of differing (or agreeing) pronouncements. Discussions in journals do not tend to read the same as email discussions and resemble I-M conversations even less.
There's a trend towards enabling formerly synchronous communication to take place asynchronously. Think about playing voice-mail tag, where two people leave messages for each other because they never catch the other one in. Initially, the messages might consist largely of the simple, repetitive "Call me.", but that's not making full use of the possibilities. Eventually people get used to the technology and start leaving requests and responses for each other. Some people even begin to find it more useful than holding an actual conversation (with all the digressions and small talk that that involves).
My mobile phone service allows me to record a message for another user on the same service and have it delivered straight to their answer phone. It's a neat idea, but it's not terribly user-friendly as it involves phoning my answer-phone service, negotiating a menu and then keying in their number before recording the message.
The new mobile phone service fastchat takes this idea and simplifies it enormously. It allows you to select one or more people from your phonebook, press a single button to start recording and then sends the selected recipient(s) the voice message. This effectively takes a synchronous form of communication (the telephone call) and converts into an asynchronous one.
Synchronous communication obviously has its advantages - you can frequently clear up misunderstandings much more easily and it's much more personal. But for those of us who like to check up on facts before replying, or who find that re-reading a message and deciding not to send the huge flame is a good way to reach an amicable solution, the more asynchronous methods there are, the better.
Let me, for the sake of argument, divide communication into two types - synchronous and asynchronous.
Synchronous communication occurs when two people engage in a conversation at the same time. They begin the conversation, exchange messages and then end it. Both people have to be involved all the way through and waiting for a reply for more than a few seconds is unusual and can cause offence (which is why people hate call-waiting).
Asynchronous communication involves one person at a time. Messages are sent and then the connection is dropped. Whether a letter is being posted, an email is sent or a message left on an answering machine, the sending of the message doesn't require anything from the person at the other end. There's a tacit acceptance that it may take a significant amount of time before a reply is received.
One advantage of asynchronous communication is that it can be multiplexed - several conversations take place at the same time. I'm currently involved in an indeterminate number of email conversations - somewhere between 3 and 10, involved between 3 and 5 people. Because the messages are static (i.e. they don't vanish in time) they can be passed around, allowing multiple people to respond to the same message over a period of time.
Instant Messenger falls somewhere in-between asynchronous and synchronous, in that while there is definitely a 'conversation' as opposed to a series of messages, each message is discrete and non-interruptible. In addition multiple conversations can take place in the context of the meta-conversation, as one of the members of the conversation can ask several questions or digress at a tangent, leaving both threads simultaneously active. I've frequently wanted a tree-view of a conversation I'm engaged in, so that I can see just the branch I'm replying to and not the multiple different branches displayed in a simple list.
Journal entries are even more asynchronous than emails. Emails generally anticipate a reply, whereas journals are pronouncements and usually don't need to be responded to. This doesn't mean that all emails are supposed to be replied to or that no journals request comments, but it's not their general mode. While the journal entry may be time specific, comments on them are frequently also non-conversational taking the form of differing (or agreeing) pronouncements. Discussions in journals do not tend to read the same as email discussions and resemble I-M conversations even less.
There's a trend towards enabling formerly synchronous communication to take place asynchronously. Think about playing voice-mail tag, where two people leave messages for each other because they never catch the other one in. Initially, the messages might consist largely of the simple, repetitive "Call me.", but that's not making full use of the possibilities. Eventually people get used to the technology and start leaving requests and responses for each other. Some people even begin to find it more useful than holding an actual conversation (with all the digressions and small talk that that involves).
My mobile phone service allows me to record a message for another user on the same service and have it delivered straight to their answer phone. It's a neat idea, but it's not terribly user-friendly as it involves phoning my answer-phone service, negotiating a menu and then keying in their number before recording the message.
The new mobile phone service fastchat takes this idea and simplifies it enormously. It allows you to select one or more people from your phonebook, press a single button to start recording and then sends the selected recipient(s) the voice message. This effectively takes a synchronous form of communication (the telephone call) and converts into an asynchronous one.
Synchronous communication obviously has its advantages - you can frequently clear up misunderstandings much more easily and it's much more personal. But for those of us who like to check up on facts before replying, or who find that re-reading a message and deciding not to send the huge flame is a good way to reach an amicable solution, the more asynchronous methods there are, the better.
