Other-Wordly Internet Communication

Body-language, social queues, signals, and physical contexts are lost when communicating online.

Want to go to Emporia with your roommate, but they’re focused and in the middle of something? Maybe you’ll just flash your keys to them with asking-eyebrows. Want to watch the latest episode of Bäst i Test with them tonight? Nearer dinner time, you might fold the couch blankets, place a bowl not yet full of popcorn on the coffee table. You can be as direct or subtle as you like—you can navigate a whole spectrum of asking, suggesting, and/or preparing. (I call this the “acquestion spectrum.”) You are given every power to accomodate for your needs, the time, the place, and all the breathing things about and between them. In a world where physical space increasingly separates us in urban lifestyles, and the decline of [[Third Places]], we risk losing this important social nuance to the limited options that our phones provide.

Another gripe I have—grapefruit-sized and lodged in my liver—about internet communication is how I must always fear getting a response. Over the internet, we communicate almost exclusively on the two-way highways that are 🚨 direct 🚨 messages. I DON’T KNOW KYLE FROM GoTo10 WELL ENOUGH to slide in with “thinking about going to a contemporary dance thing on friday, wbu?” Nuh-uh 🙂‍↔️, I’m not so bold.

Because my dancer-plans and I are never* visible to Kyle unless I acquest in the most direct ways possible (asking), I find myself not acquesting at all. If he could only see the exclamation mark I’m wearing above my head, he could make up his own mind about engaging, and I wouldn’t need to go through all the trouble of stuffing my texts with copious amounts of nonchalantness in order to compensate for having to go off of a non-existent vibe.

What are some ways we make ourselves visible online?

So, the question is: How do we paint our touch-screens in ways that allow us acquest more fluidly? Which parts of the acquestion spectrum are already traversable through our screens, and which are the most neglected?

The Locket widget, social media Stories and other ephemeral imagery. I want to discuss their limitations. Ultimately, no matter how good these are, we need more options to accommodate for the needs and customs of different people and contexts. Besides, SnapChat is won't do your Instagram friends any good and vice versa.

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