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Have you ever "chatted" on the internet? Have you gotten to know
someone using that form of electronic communication? Do you consider
her to be a friend? Does her face really light up when you log on? Is
she really laughing at that hilarious joke you just made, or did she
just emotionlessly type the letters "rofl" to compensate you for what
she perceives to be a pathetic attempt at humor? Did you type something
to hurt her feelings, or to draw a tear from her eyes? Would she be
able to look you in the eye and say what she is typing? Would she say
it loudly or softly? What inflections would she use? Is she really a
she? Is she dressed or naked? Is she beautiful or ugly? Would you
really ever know? After all, communication over the internet confers a
powerful sword of anonymity upon those with whom we "chat." They and
they alone paint an image of themselves through their type-written
words. It is the image that they wish for
us to see of them, sometimes with and sometimes without regard for the
true character and appearance of the person at the keyboard. As
faceless colleagues devoid of physical
manifestation, our printed words, by themselves, formulate our entire
identities. What an odd place, this internet.
With these thoughts in mind, we turn to the focus of this essay: if we
allow internet chatlines to alter the methods by which we decipher the
credibility of a person’s statement -- putting more and more stock into
the words themselves and less and less stock into the way in which they
are uttered -- then chatlines will enable and empower greater fabrication
among society. This argument has several successive components. First,
non-verbal observations are essential to fully assessing, among many
other things, a person’s attitude, demeanor and credibility. Second,
internet chat lines rob us of our ability to make such physical
observations. Third, we therefore allow non-visual cues, that is,
type-written words alone, to enable us to visualize the facial
expressions, body language, inflections and tones of those with whom we
are communicating. We ignore pauses and delays in answers because they
may not be a product of reluctance or hesitation, but merely a product
of a slow typist or lagging server. For example, we may visualize that
a person who types "rofl" -- the chatline shorthand symbol for "rolling on
floor laughing" is heartily laughing at our jokes, when they have in
actuality barely cracked a smile. We may believe that someone who is
busy fabricating a story with which to respond to our questions has
delayed their response solely as a result of a lagging computer server.
Fourth, the words typed on a chatline rarely paint the whole and
truthful picture. Fifth, as society becomes increasingly willing to
forgive actual physical and observable social interaction in exchange
for such written social dialogue in its attempt to decipher the truth,
the knowledge base from which society infers such social visualizations
will dissipate. In other words, as we spend less time with people, in
person, than we do with those on the computer, we will have a smaller
base of
knowledge from which to draw conclusions when we are attempting to
visualize the person with whom we are communicating. We will develop an
intrinsic willingness to rely upon the written word alone in our
assessments of the truth. Hence, the deterioration of our ability to
assess credibility is cyclical in nature. I shall attempt to briefly
address each of the five successive components of this argument within
this essay.
First, in order to fully assess a person’s attitude, demeanor and
credibility, we simply must get a look at them. The truth, often times,
is in the eyes. But it is usually not there alone. Our justice system
relies upon the premise that a trier of fact -- judge or jury -- will be
able to decipher the truth based upon its assessment of the credibility
of the witnesses testifying before it. Of course, it would be much less
expensive and much less time consuming if our justice system were to
allow litigants to simply submit written statements setting forth their
respective positions. The trier of fact would then be asked to decipher
which statement was true and which was false -- based upon
words and words alone. There is a reason why a justice system of such a
sort would fail
miserably: because we can rarely find the truth in words and words
alone. If I am
cross-examining someone on the stand, and he answers my questions
directly and promptly,
while sitting upright and speaking confidently, I will have a tendency
(subject to many other factors not relevant to this essay) to believe
him more readily than I would a person who rarely makes eye contact,
shifts in his seat, and often attempts to avoid or confuse the simplest
of questions (e.g., I once asked a person, "Did you or did you not
tell [Mr. X] that you would kill him?" Her answer was, after an
extended delay was, "I don’t understand what you are asking me."). To
suggest that one can assess credibility merely by reading the written
word is ludicrous. I could belabor this point with several pages of
discussion, were it not for the fact that very few reasonable people
would dispute it. To those that would I will sell some swampland.
Second, internet chat lines rob us of our ability to make such physical
observations. This is self-evident and requires no discussion.
Although we can receive photographs of the people with whom we are
communicating (assuming, indeed, that they are the true photographs of
that person), we cannot make physical observations of a person who is
typing back and forth with us. We do not hear their vocalized pauses.
We do not see their darting eyes. We read what they write and that is
it.
Third, we therefore allow non-visual cues, that is, type-written words
alone, to enable us to visualize the facial expressions, body language,
inflections and vocal tones of those with whom we are communicating.
People who communicate through chatlines use an emoticon -- a typographic code -- to
convey certain physical, non-verbal components of their communication.
For example, a smile is conveyed as :). Tilting our heads to the left
and looking at the symbol, we see that a the colon and parenthesis
create a typographic smile. Similarly, a wink is depicted as ;). If
we wish to convey laughter, we type "lol" for "laughing out loud." If
we wish to portray ourselves as laughing more heartily, we type "rofl"
for "rolling on floor laughing." Of course, if we wish to convey the
image of someone overcome with laughter, we type "roflmao," for "rolling
on floor laughing my ass off." We type % as a greeting, although I
have never understood why. We also sometimes communicate using other
type-written cues to convey non-verbal messages. For example, if we
actually wish to convey that we are lying, we may type uttered pauses
such as "um" or "er" or "...." (ellipsis) into our sentences. For example, if I
wish for someone to understand that I am lying when asked the question,
"Did you log on earlier and state that I am unintelligent?" I may answer
by typing, "um....er....uh.....No!" The typed answer is "no" but the
affirmative nature of the response is nonetheless humorously conveyed.
This provides us with an excellent
illustration. In this example, the only thing that caused the
untruthfulness of my negative response to be conveyed was the decision
on my part to type out my vocalized pauses. Had I not done so, and
simply typed out "no," the response would carry an entirely different
meaning. As typist, therefore, I can control and disguise the
credibility of my responses.
Fourth, the words typed on a chatline rarely paint the whole and
truthful picture. We tend to wish for people to see us in a most
positive light. There are, of course, the obvious examples of this
proposition: the person with whom I am chatting may be 75 years old and
weigh 350 lbs. with a height of 4’8". However, she may yet state in our
"chat" that she is 23 years old, tan, and physically stunning. In this
manner, she can be young and thin again. She feels better in the
process, and I am happy to have the opportunity to converse with someone
whom I unknowingly believe to be a supermodel. Even in the less extreme
circumstances, where "chatters" actually electronically send actual
photographs of themselves, they are more likely to send the good photos
than the bad. There is, however, a fundamental reason that the words
typed on a chatline
rarely paint the whole and truthful picture. Because they simply
cannot. By reading what is typed, one is wholly unable to assess the
mood, tenor and demeanor of the opposing typist. We can never truly
know whether that person is laughing or just falsely portraying
laughter. We can never truly know if that person is nervous or pausing
in his responses. We can never truly know if that person is rich or
poor, healthy or unhealthy, bold or shy, or sincere or insincere. We
can never know these things, because unverifiable words alone can never
speak them.
Fifth, as society becomes increasingly willing to forgive actual
physical and observable social interaction in exchange for such written
social dialogue in its attempt to decipher the truth, the knowledge base
from which society infers such social visualizations will dissipate.
In life outside of the confines of the internet, we can usually see the
person with whom we are communicating. We can actually observe the way
that he appeared when he told that last lie. We can actually develop a
base of knowledge from which to draw when we are assessing the veracity
of statements made to us. Internet "chat" lines provide us with a
different and less sound base of knowledge. Our willingness to rely
much more heavily on words, and much less heavily on the way in which
they are spoken, becomes an intrinsic quality of our everyday
communication. In this manner, we erode our truth-seeking knowledge
base and replace it with one far less likely to empower us to ferret out
the truth. This is the danger of the chat-line, and it is not one to be
taken lightly.
It must be noted that I recognize that there are many valuable aspects
to internet "chat" lines, including that they have enabled us to
communicate with persons whom we would otherwise never meet, from areas
all over the globe. They engender intelligent (or, in some cases,
unintelligent) discourse between people of all different backgrounds. I
am not, by this essay, suggesting that "chat" lines have no value to our
society. I merely respectfully suggest that there is a potential social
danger embedded within them, and we must therefore be wary of their
potential impact upon our ability to get to the truth.
The bottom line is that truth is rarely derived from words and words
alone; no matter how convincingly the person with whom we are chatting,
or the United States President, would have us believe that it is. We
should never allow the ever-expanding computer technology to replace our
sound judgment and ability to distinguish truth from falsity.
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