Notes #4

Sprecher and Wickes (2009) pointed out that text-based communication compared to “face-to-face communications” and “voice communications” has advantages and disadvantages. Text-based allows an individual to collect his thoughts and edit it from grammatical errors. Say for example some messaged you in pure English and you want to reply him/her in English too, one thing you can do is take time to review your reply or let the computer check your messages. Thus, it let you get-away from a possible shameful situation. It also gives you a flexible time as to when will you reply his/her message, especially if the message is sent as an email or if it is a chat you can easily pretend that you are offline by simply changing your status from available to invisible. Another positive trait is it allows busy people communicate even if their schedules don’t fit. It also let you send a particular message to a group of people without repeating its content to each person. It also allows us to send “short messages”, as short as a simple hi or hello. Furthermore, “text-based communication” allows both parties to save money from their “transportation” expenses during meet ups. Along with these advantages are its disadvantages one thing is the lack of presence in the conversation. Thus, unable one to perceive the mood of the other, his facial expressions and reactions are not conveyed in his text messages. Also sarcastic messages can lead to a misconception, that’s why in aide with this need is the birth of emoticons that shows the mood of the other. Compared to “voice and face-to-face” conversations textual is time consuming because typing takes time. Furthermore, “text-based” messages when a user is allowed not to put his/her name in his/her posts or messages develops insensitivity in writing bad comments to an individual and this occur in any form of “text-based communications”.

Sprecher, S. & Wickes, E. (2009). Communication, Instant Messaging and Other New    Media. In H. Reis & S. Sprecher (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Human Relationships, 1, (pp. 256-259). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.. Retrieved from        http://find.galegroup.com/gps/infomark.do?&contentSet=EBKS&type=retrieve&tabI        D=T001&prodId=IPS&docId=CX3207700097&source=gale&srcprod=EB00&userGr        oupName=phdiliman&version=1.0