No, really! If you look at many threads on here they are, as I've said in the past, almost down to a formula. Well, I think I've found an interesting story that explains WHY this may happen...
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130624152251-117825785-can-we-be-emotionally-intelligent-online Can We Be Emotionally Intelligent Online? The social brain is in its natural habitat when we're talking with someone face-to-face in real time. Its picking up information that it wants in the moment. It's reading prosody in voice, emotions, and nonverbal cues. And it's doing it invisibly, doing it constantly, out of our awareness and then telling us what to do next to keep things smooth and on track. The problem from my point of view with communicating on the web is that is it has no channel for the social brain to attend to. Aside from perhaps video chat, you have no emotional signal in real time. You have nothing for the orbital frontal cortex, which is dying to get this information to latch onto, to inhibit impulse and tell you, no don't do that, do this. Were essentially flying blind. Which leads me to wonder: is the web actually designed to optimize flaming? When I spoke with Clay Shirky, professor in NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program for my CD Socially Intelligent Computing, he shared his thoughts on our online flaming culture and how to quell intense e-interactions. Flaming is one of the most social effects and one of the earliest ones to be commented on because it's much more severe in groups than it is in two person exchanges. One of the antidotes to flaming especially in work situations is to contact the instigator personally by email or phone, if possible. Very often people find that you have a much more reasonable conversation. When you take them out of the social part of the conversation where they're performing in front of an audience, say in a web conference, forum or group email conversation, and address them as an individual, they become much less prone to the kind of name-calling and vituperation. In some ways, flaming is a combination of social and technological pressures that are suppressing a lot of emotional awareness. One of the things that IMing and texting has showed us is that presence, awareness of someone else in real time, creates a different sense than if we're emailing or commenting on a post, simply because of the acceleration of time. Presence can start to convey things more than just I am here and breathing and attending to the computer but I am here and I agree or disagree. How can you create more presence in all of your online interactions? Simply take a few seconds to reflect on your intention and message. Is it clear? Will the tone be misinterpreted? That brief pause can save you a lot of back pedaling and hassle for an intentionally (or unintentionally) snarky comment. Learn how to be more emotionally intelligent with online interactions in my previous LinkedIn Today article The danger of email and with my CD with Clay Shirky called Socially Intelligent Computing. You will also find some helpful awareness-building exercises on Mirabai Bushs CD Working with Mindfulness. Until Later! C. Hatton Humphrey http://www.eastcoastconservative.com Every cloud does have a silver lining. Sometimes you just have to do some smelt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:364876 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
