Concept Number 17: The impact of text-based real-time chat
“Communicating in real-time with text enables a form of ‘authoring of the self’ that is similar to the processes of face-to-face speech but which is much more amendable of authorial control, experimentation and reflection. Further, text-based communication carries with it the possibility for multiple, differing conversations occurring simultaneously, relying on the ability of the human brain to deal with text much better than speech.” (Allen, n.d)From my experience and research I have found that communication over the Internet is far different to other forms of communication. There are many positive and negative aspects with communicating in various ways over then Internet.
Many businesses these days tend to use real-time text based communication as one of their main communication options. As
Morrisett (1996) discusses in his article
"Habits of mind and a new technology of freedom" the advantages of using computer-mediated communication are its reliability, speed, low cost and freedom. Due to these advantages, people are relying more and more on the Internet for communication.
Face-to-face or over the phone communication is no longer the only synchronous communication. Online chat programs such as ICQ, MSN, and IRC are all real-time communication programs. You are able to use them for business, recreational, social or for instructional purposes. The pros and cons of Real-time chat for instructional purposes is discussed further in the article
"Communication Conventions in Instructional Electronic Chats" by Collins and Murphy, (1997).
The issue with chat programs is that you can get behind in the conversation. If you are chatting online with someone who is slow at typing they will take longer to send their message and it may have been much faster calling them over the phone. Where as is you are chatting with someone who is fast at typing you may find that you get left behind in the conversation and have trouble keep up. However I feel it would be more common to get left behind in an online discussion if you were chatting with a group rather than one person. This was experienced in the ICQ chat task for module 2. Also people who aren’t as familiar with how the program works will tend to fall behind with the conversation as well.
Keeping in mind that it is easy to get left behind in a conversation or have time to write up your ideas, real-time text based communication is beneficial as you have a hard copy of what you have discussed with said person or group. Whereas when we communicate over the phone you don’t have any copy of what was said. This will then make it difficult to remind you of what has been discussed or later use it as proof of what was said. When you communicate through online chat you have the option of choosing whether you want the conversations to be saved as a document on your computer or not. This would be very beneficial for future referencing especially in business situation or when studying and completing group assignments.
Finally the use of online chat is beneficial for people who are isolated in remote areas; joining online support groups or if you have personal difficulties meeting people in person. Online communication allows individuals to meet others who have similar interests, and hold discussions with them online rather then posting letters back and forth which can take days/weeks longer. The only problem with discussion with strangers online is that you never actually know their true identity. The Internet allows people to be someone that they aren’t and unless you meet the person face-to-face you have no real way of telling if this stranger is being honest with whom they say they are, mention by Morrisett (1996).
In my opinion, the convenience of online chat still outweighs the stress of making appointments to meet people in person, having telephone conferences, and in some cases travelling long distances to hold meetings. It is much faster, cheaper and less time-consuming being able to use text-based real time chat.
Annotation 1: “Habits of mind and a new technology of freedom”
Morrisett, L.
(1996). “Habits of mind and a new technology of freedom.” First Monday, [Online], Volume 1 Number 3 Retrieved 20th May 2009 from
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/483/404Morrisett discusses the growth of internet communication and the benefits this has had. The section “New Technology, New Freedom” was particularly interesting and helped with my understanding of the different forms of communication available over the internet. This article was to the point and easy to follow especially because there was not a lot of jargon. Morrisett backs his discussion up by including facts that he has come across from other people’s research and surveys etc, which adds to the strength of his arguments.
Annotation 2: “Communication Conventions in Instructional Electronic Chats”
Collins, M. P., and Murphy, K. L., (1997) “Communication Conventions in Instructional Electronic Chats.” First Monday [Online], Volume 2 Number 11 Retrieved 20th May 2009 from
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/558/479Collins and Murphy discuss in depth the pros and cons of computer conferencing for instructional purposes and compare this to the traditional style of classroom teaching. They discuss the many types of internet communication now available and the impacts of each of these in today’s society. This article includes easy reading graphs which help display their results and findings. They have also included comments that were made by others when researching. It is interesting to see the views of others on the types of communication now available.
References:
Allen, M. (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11,
The Internet – Communications Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/Concept Number 26: Privacy and Security
“The Internet is a profoundly ‘open’ system and advanced Internet users are cautious about either accepting or sending material from and to unknown sources and are careful in releasing information about themselves in any form. Conceptually, the Internet challenges us to take greater responsibility for the protection of privacy and security than perhaps we are used to when dealing with the media.” (Allen, n.d)
The Internet has become one of the most common sources for communication and research in the world. As so many people have access to the Internet and it is used for such varied tasks, it is not uncommon for people to worry about the security and privacy of the Internet.
One of the major issues is the amount of spam that is sent through e-mails to people’s e-mail accounts. Often the SPAM contains inappropriate information or images that can offend others. I have found that rarely do these e-mails contain viruses or other harmful programs, they are more so just a nuisance. However, one helpful thing with e-mail accounts is that you can set your account to block certain degrees of junk/spam. This then acts a security measure and filters the mail into separate folders so you are able to see the e-mails that are actually meant for you and the majority of SPAM ends up in the junk folder.
Over the years the Internet has expanded to such an extent that everyday activities such as banking, paying bills, home work, online business conference etc can be done at the touch of a key. The issue with this however is that all the information you put on the Internet can be viewed or disclosed by the wrong people. As Classens, Preneel, and Vandewalle (2002) discuss in their article, “An attacker could try to impersonate entities in order to get information which is normally not disclosed without authorisation; for example, an attacker could spoof a Web banking application, hereby gathering users' PIN codes. A substantial amount of confidential information is made available via the WWW; unauthorised access to this information should be prevented.”
Since security and privacy is such a problem over the Internet, sites such as online banking are developing several different security measures. These range from passwords, access codes, secret questions and answers, to sending a text message to your mobile with a pin before allowing you to process any transactions on the online bank. This then makes it difficult for unauthorised people to get access to other people’s personal information. With my experiences with online banking, I find that the SMS with a pin is very useful, as I will know if anyone is trying to transfer money from my account and without the pin they cannot proceed with that transaction.
Another activity that is carried out over the Internet is online shopping. These days you can purchase almost anything as long as you have a credit card or deposit the money into the sellers account before they send out the item you have purchased. Most Internet shopping sites have certain accreditation so you know they are a genuine seller, however there are many fraudulent people out there and will take you for what you have. “One important aspect of trust online is the nature of risk in terms of actual damage, spam e-mail, financial or time cost, and perceived loss of privacy” discussed by Nikander and Karvonen, cited by Brown and Sellen (2001). However many people are whiling to take the risk of shopping online because they feel that the positives (discounted prices, or the purchase of hard to come by items) definitely outweigh the negatives.
Annotation 1: “A Tangled World Wide Web of Security Issues”
Claessens, J,. Preneel, B,. And Vandewalle, J. (2002) “A Tangled World Wide Web of Security Issues" First Monday [Online], Volume 7 Number 3. Retrieved 21st May 2009 from
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/935/857The authors of “A Tangled World Wide Web of Security Issues”, have written a comprehensive overview of the issues of security and privacy that we are faced with when using the WWW. They have given background of the WWW and discussed ways in which this current issues are being fixed. A number of other useful links are also included throughout the paper. This article covered many issues that are still current in today’s society.
Annotation 2: “Exploring users' experiences of the Web”
Brown, B., and Sellen, A., (2001). "Exploring users' experiences of the Web" First Monday [Online], Volume 6 Number 9 Retrieved 21st May 2009 from
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/882/791Brown and Sellen have done a wonderful job researching and discussing in depth the experiences of other users when using the web. They have included in this article the results of their findings; some of the individual comments made by users and included images to help explain what they are discussing. I found the section “Problems with Internet shopping: trust and risk” to be very interesting and enjoyed reading the added comments that they included from other users.
References:Allen, M,. (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11,
The Internet – Communications Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/Concept 32: Virtually a Library?
“A Library is, fundamentally, a system organized according to shared, accepted sets of classifications and organizations, and on the basis that it is impossible to access the information except through categories (either in a catalogue or by browsing collocated books on a shelf). The World Wide Web has no such shared system, and is technologically capable of a large degree of searching for information directly – ‘full text searching’. What advanced users seek to do is to exploit the advantages of the idea of a library in a way that suits their person needs, effectively creating personal virtual libraries.”(Allen, n.d)The World Wide Web is generally one big pool of information. A library is also a place that holds all sorts of information. Many people feel that the World Wide Web can be labeled as an element of a virtual library. I feel it really depends on your own meaning of a library, and what your meaning of the World Wide Web is and their uses. Noted by Koehler (1999) “The Digital Library Federation offers one
definition of digital libraries: Digital libraries are organizations that provide the resources, including the specialized staff, to select, structure, offer intellectual access to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity of, and ensure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily and economically available for use by a defined community or set of communities.”
In the article
"Digital Libraries and World Wide Web sites and page of persistence" Koehler (1999) discusses similarities between Libraries and the World Wide Web. He states “Digital libraries, including Web-based collections, are redefining both the role of electronic information storage and retrieval as well as the role of traditional libraries. As Chen (1998) has argued, no cohesive or comprehensive theory of digital libraries has yet to be fully developed. Digital libraries include collections of books, journal articles, graphics, newspapers, and other material in digital format; in sum, collections of digitized content. To be a library, that collection should be organized according to some standard
Chen (1998).” The World Wide Web offers information in different ways to which the usual library would, however virtual libraries are now more easily accessed. From my findings, the main difference between the traditional library and virtual/digital libraries is that virtual libraries aren’t categorized.
One major problem I find with the internet acting as a digital library, is that you can’t 100% trust what you read on the World Wide Web. This is because so many people have access to the WWW and are free to upload anything they like. The information may be correct, but how can you tell? There is no real way in valuing all the information that is available on the web. Whereas with a traditional library, the information and resources are all categorized so you know what are facts and what is fiction.
Missingham (2003) discusses the value of information available over the World Wide Web, and ways in which we can measure the quality. Also in her article
"What Makes Libraries Relevant in the 21st Century? Measuring digital collections from three perspectives" she covers several ways in which we determine the value of the information available. She mentions in her conclusion “Juggling our resources to ensure that readers, or users, are best served through a mix of print and electronic resources provides a significant challenge for libraries. By using the concept of the hybrid library and combining an analysis of value based upon the matching of digital footprints, as they exist to users, libraries and information producers, new insights can be gained into collection development and delivery.”
Annotation 1: "Digital libraries and World Wide Web sites and page persistence."Koehler, W,. (1999) "Digital libraries and World Wide Web sites and page persistence." Information Research, 4(4) Retrieved 22nd May 2009 from:
http://informationr.net/ir/4-4/paper60.htmlIn the article “Digital libraries and World Wide Web sites and page persistence” Koehler argues the World Wide Web can be labeled a digital library because he feels that the information available online can be categorized and organized. He also discuss many others points of view and the options on what makes virtual libraries. This article covers all angles of what makes a library. He includes many other useful links to back his argument.
Koehler has done a wonderful job in covering what he set out to do.
Annotation 2: "What Makes Libraries Relevant in the 21st Century? Measuring digital collection from perspectives" Missingham, R,. (2003)
"What Makes Libraries Relevant in the 21st Century? Measuring digital collections from three perspectives" National Library of Australia at the
Information Online 2003 Conference. Retrieved 22nd May 2009 from:
http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/2003/missingham2.htmlMissingham discusses in depth the value of information available today in the 21st century in digital libraries. Seeing as the world has had such rapid growth in using the internet she feels that the even without a correct definition of what “virtual” and “digital” libraries are that the move to digital collection is here to stay. The article includes results from studies and different points of view. The article focuses on the question “What digital collections should be provided by a library?” and Missingham covers this question extensively.
References:Allen, M,. (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11,
The Internet – Communications Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/Digital Library Information and Resources (1999)
http://www.webcitation.org/5RYmStGXJConcept Number 18: Non-speech communication through text: audience and authors’ responsibilities
“The Internet imposes responsibility on all its users to be both effective ‘speakers’ and ‘listeners’, who are each aware of the differences between Internet chat and face-to-face communication and who compensate for the learnt preference of humans for a communication style that involves gestures, intonations etc that cannot be directly transmitted over the net.” (Allen, n.d)Since the rapid development of the internet and the extensive ways in which one can communicate over the World Wide Web, users of this communication style are having trouble coping with this new found phenomenon. The younger generations who have grown up with non-speech communication have coped well learn as they go. However it is the older generations that are having difficulties accepting and understanding the new online communities and e-mail. When communicating over the internet it is important that you keep in mind who will be receiving your communicated material. Important factors that need to be considered to make sure that the communication is successful and understood are: Age, experience using online communication, their ethnic background, gender, Netiquette etc. If you are not careful when communicating online the message you are conveying may be misread.
As cited by Williams (1998) in his publication
"Predicting E-mail Effects in Organisations" “Another recent development to increase the effectiveness of electronically mediated communication is sensory predicate matching (Crook & Booth, 1997). Sensory predicates are word choices that enhance rapport between an author and reader of a message and refer to the three primary senses; visual, auditory and kinesthetic that individuals use, and prefer, in written communication (Bandler & Grinder, 1975). However, the concept was adopted from speech accommodation theory, which states that oral communicators adjust their speech styles to meet that of the person with whom they are communicating (Street & Giles, 1982).”
With face-to-face communication, you are able to read the body language of the person you are talking to. Facial expressions, body movements, gesture like motions etc are simple things that help to maintain an understanding of the context the message is being conveyed and how it is being received. However, through online communication this is not able to be read. Williams (1998)
For online communities, group based chat, e-mail and so on people can sometime come across differently from who they actually are. This is because of there textual choices. Giese (1998) states “The textual choices people make in their interactions in the group are complex and multi-faceted. They are deliberate and conscious choices made in an attempt to present themselves in a particular way and be perceived in a particular way.”
As discussed by Giese (1998) some computer mediated material is now considered a synchronous mode of communication. Thus making written communication “feel” like face-to-face communication. However, electronic communication is more commonly known as asynchronous communication as there is still a small delay in responses, but this is far less than the previous communication modes. Giese includes in his article
“Self Without Body: Textual Self-Representation in an Electronic Community” “Because the response delay has been so drastically reduced it is much easier to think of communicative acts in terms of a less formal "conversational" mode rather than "writing" which has traditionally been a more formal and structured mode.”
I believe that as the internet expands, as will people’s abilities to communicate effectively and efficiently using online communication. It is likely that in generations to come, they will sit there thinking how the hectic did people get by with out the internet. Just like we do now, with telephones and televisions!
Annotation 1: "Self Without Body: Textual Self-Representation in an Electronic Community"
Giese, M,. (1998) “
Self Without Body: Textual Self-Representation in an Electronic Community” First Monday [Online], Volume 3 Number 4 Retrieved 22nd May 2009 from:
http://131.193.153.231/www/issues/issue3_4/giese/Giese has divide into the discussion of computer generated communication with expertise and great understanding. He shows sound knowledge and examines the opportunities for social interaction and presentation of ones self over the internet. He concludes that “real-time textual interaction engenders a novel new social environment”.
“
Self Without Body: Textual Self-Representation in an Electronic Community” is a well written and engaging article. He discusses the social issues with computer generated communication soundly.
Annotation 2: "Predicting E-mail Effects in Organisations"
Williams, E,. (1998) "Predicting E-mail Effects in Organisations" First Monday [Online], Volume 3 Number 9. Retrieved on 22nd May 2009 from:
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/617/538This article discusses the ever growing changes that computer generated communication has on organisations and individuals. Williams discusses the changes and the way it has effected organizations. He includes ways in which we can make better choices to make sure our communication is correctly received.
Williams prediction “By the 21st century e-mail will be a pervasive communication medium in organisations one that will complement a number of communication channels including the telephone, with expanded functionality, paper based communication tools and the familiar face to face exchange to name three existing channels.” I feel that the prediction was right on track.
References:
Allen, M,. (n.d). Internet Communications Concepts Document in Net11,
The Internet – Communications Curtin University of Technology.
http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/
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