> >How about think time? When writing things on message boards you can spend hours perfecting the text before posting it, and still have a conversation. You can't do that in a physical conversation. Also, when in chat rooms you're in more of a rush to get your point across. How do these sort of conversations compare to real ones? Maybe you research things before posting opinions.
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> I feel like the "think time," as you refer to it, is greater in an online chat room than in a face to face conversation. Because you're separated from the people you're conversing with by miles and miles of distance, and all you see are their words on the screen, you don't feel the pressure of the person sitting across from you waiting for you to answer them. But maybe that's just the way I personally speak with others. When I'm thinking about something in the chat room, I often get a "You still there, Grishny?" from the others, which is similar to what happens when I stop to think in a FTF conversation. But in a FTF conversation, I feel more pressure to hurry up and respond, because the other person is right there and I can see their facial expressions; body language; etc.


I thought this was an interesting response, because I have just the opposite feeling, for the exact same reasons. I feel *more* time pressure in chat, because there are less "clues" to help me interpret the situation than in FTF conversation. I can't hear your tone of voice in chat, or see your facial expressions, or body language to help me formulate an appropriate response. I didn't realize how much I depended on the visual clues until I had a lengthy phone conversation with a co-worker. In person, I could pretty well understand everything this very heavily-accented ESL gentleman said. On the phone, 50% of the conversation was a mystery!--all the visual clues were gone. It rather surprised me. But same principle applies to chat. It's harder for us visually oriented folks.

Let me also note that some people are hydroplane thinkers--light and fast! while others are submarine thinkers--deeper and slower! Chat rooms would seem to be the perfect forum for the hydroplaners. All I can say for myself is "periscope down!" which is why I've only been on chat a couple of times.

koala"dive! dive!"mom