MSN Messenger: Taking the Batteries Out of Our Monitors

In the early 1990's, AT&T offered Videophones to the public for the first time. Oddly enough, this did not revolutionize our world, slowly replacing the regular phone. Today we still have pretty much the same phone we had 50 years ago. Yes, we have caller display, and super special phones called cell phones allow you to magically receive calls anywhere, but we still send and receive messages purely vocally. This would seem to have been phased out by Videophones, but it hasn't, for the simple reason that Videophones would offer TOO MUCH communication.

As has been discussed before, MSN Messenger is also a definite indicator of our social behaviour. From a speed standpoint, it doesn't quite make sense. If we were in person, we could communicate our thoughts immediately, but on MSN, we need to spell it out, grammatically correct or not. As of a few years ago, MSN offered microphone and webcam support: now we could see and talk to each other just like real life. Though some people use these tools, it is still very limited, and isn't picking up speed as the technology grows more accessible.

The bottom line of the matter is that people don't WANT to see and hear each other. We prefer to communicate through quantized messages, instead of a continuous stream of information we'd have in a face-to-face conversation. And who could blame us? The fact of the matter is that when you are in person, you have to keep track of so many more things: Did I answer fast enough? should I be looking at them more when I'm talking? Now, am I staring at them? Do I sound interested? Do you think they saw me look at the clock? This is all just what we can control most of the time. We also communicate many more things we can't keep track of. "While verbal messages are almost always intentional, nonverbal cues are often unintended, and sometimes unconscious." (Adler, 2006: 159)

Here's an example of the latter:

"JERRY: So tell us about the trip. How's Dr. Reston?
ELAINE: Oh, he's fine.
JERRY: Things are good?
ELAINE: Yeah, you know (scratches cheek)
JERRY: Uh oh.
ELAINE: What, Uh oh?
JERRY: Did you see that?
GEORGE: Yeah, I saw it.
ELAINE: What?
JERRY: It's a tell. You got a tell.
ELAINE: What tell? What's a tell?
JERRY: When you ask someone about their relationship and they touch their face you know it's not going too well. Go ahead ask me how it's going with somebody.
ELAINE: Um, uh, how's it going with, uh, Alice?
JERRY: Good, going good (scratches chin) And the higher up on the face you go the worse the relationship is getting. You know it is like - pretty good - not bad - I gotta get out.
ELAINE: How high did I go?
GEORGE: You almost did the nose." (Seinfeld, 1992)

These are the kinds of questions that you no longer have to ask yourself when you communicate online. Online, you are just using verbal communication, ironically since you are not speaking. However, for all intents and purposes, the communication is purely verbal since it is controlled packets of information, and very little or no non-verbal communication gets through. Even large lapses between sent messages are immediately excused by the receiver, since he/she has no idea what situation you're under. Maybe you have 4 conversations going, or are trying to finish your Communication Studies blog at the same time as talking to them.

In short, MSN and other forms of limiting non-verbal communication allow us to be less monitored by the other people's social algorithm, and in turn, we monitor the other people less too. It is all just much less mentally exhausting. Also, for more informational talks, it is better to communicate in such a way that limits non-verbal communication. If someone wanted to explain to me the Theory of Special Relativity, I would rather they wrote it down, so I could take it in without my brain competing in real time with the distractions that are our social monitors.


Works Cited:

Adler, Ronald B. and George Rodman. Understanding Human Communication, 9th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Seinfeld, Dir. Tom Cherones. Perf. Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Michael Richards, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. National Broadcasting Company, 1992.

Videophone." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 17 Oct 2006, 17:51 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 21 Oct 2006 .