I received a text from my roommate yesterday regarding a disagreement we had about apartment chores (washing dishes, vacuuming, etc.). I had voiced an opinion earlier in the week to all of my roommates about how I felt like I am the always the one who is forced to do the majority of the cleaning in the apartment. It often feels like sometimes nobody else is willing to step up and take on the task of doing house work, unless it is their particular mess they are cleaning up. One of my roommates, in particular, was concerned after the conversation had concluded and wanted to follow up with a text asking if we could continue discussing the topic via text. I responded with a text saying "I feel like I am not appreciated and I clean too much all by myself". He responded with, "What can I do about it...?"
At first, while glancing at his reply, I was immediately filled with rage. I interpreted his text to be irritated and unhelpful, as if he were expressing that there was not really anything he could do in the situation. How could this be? There were many things he could do. All I was asking for was some assistance and appreciation. Why would he say such a thing? This conversation turned out to be a very telling experience demonstrating the significance of extralinguistic information, such as nonverbal cues (facial expression, posture, gestures). My roommate, in fact, was not trying to be rude or unapologetic. On the contrary, he had meant to pose the question "What can I do about it...?" in a way that was attempting to be apologetic and helpful. He wanted to know what I sincerely thought would be the best way for him to remedy the situation. If I had witnessed an accurate display of his facial expressions and gestures during the asking of this question, rather than simply the words in a phone message, I definitely would have spared myself all of the anger, misunderstanding, and hurt feelings. Chapter 8 of the textbook explains how extralinguistic information serves as an "Overall Dining Experience". (p. 288) Language is not as self-explanatory as we often perceive it to be. This is the reason why virtual communication can be so misleading and detrimental to relationships. We take this additional information for granted. Although not a part of language, extralinguistic information plays a vital role in the interpretation of it. (p. 288)
I definitely agreed mixed messages are often sent through text when no extralinguistic information is present. I feel that sarcasm in virtual communication is hard to distinguish especially. Often leading the receiver offended unless an emoticon is placed at the end of the sentence. I personally use emoticons a lot to help convey the message I am trying to send. Even though they seem to be useless unless you are texting or emailing your significant other, emoticons can make or break a conversation or sometimes a relationship. However these can also be fabricated to make their emotions appear a certain way. The best none face to face communication should be phone calls which will allow the tone of voice to be interpreted which is where we receive most of the important extralinguistic information from.
I believe you a hundred percent. I often use emoticons to help provide some extralinguistic information on my texts. Sarcasm especially is tricky to deal with in virtual communication. Often leading to confusion and sometimes hurt if the meaning is not expressed clearly. Technology is great, but sometimes troublesome when communicating.
I agree that text messages can sometimes be very confusing due to the lack of nonverbal cues and the fact that there is still no specific font for sarcasm. Seriously, there needs to be a font for sarcasm. After reading this chapter in the book, I have started to recognize how often nonverbal cues are used in communication, and ow useful they are. The tone of voice people use is also very important in conversations, I think.
Interesting post! I like how you connect your real-life experience to a topic that we're learning about in class. I agree with what you have concluded, that emotions are hard to convey and hard to decipher over text message. I think its especially hard to convey an emotion (ie. anger, jealousy etc.) over texts, because over electronic devices others cannot "read your face" or assess the situation and come to a conclusion based on your facial expression. Therefore, without emoticons its very hard to know what the other persons thinking.
Your topic about text messages, I can relate! Not only do I also feel that text messages has so many different interpretations on the way they can sound, but at times it's good that we discuss it individually with the person who texted us. That way, we would be able to clearify what that person is really saying. Overall, your blog was very interesting to read!
I totally understand where you are coming from. With text messaging it is hard to totally understand what the other person is trying to say. I am a person who takes into consideration a lot of visual clues when talking to other people, so when I receive a text message from someone I do a lot of second guessing about what they actually mean. I also have learned not to sarcastic in text messaging because I have had friends read it the wrong way.