In this time and age, people are increasingly turning away from face-to-face communication and moving towards utilizing computer mediated technology ever more frequently. The benefits of this are many. Using texting and other forms of computer mediated communications facilitates near instantaneous communication, allowing for quick changes of plan. Gone are the days when you had to wait anxiously by the mailbox for days, even weeks, for a letter from your loved one; those days where you were constantly refreshing your email inbox for hours on end awaiting your friend’s email are gone, your boyfriend/girlfriend could be reached by a simple text from your phone, and that special someone would most likely respond within minutes, perhaps even seconds.
However, there is one major flaw to computer mediated communications, especially in the field of texting or instant-messaging. There is a huge potential for miscommunication over texting or facebook-messaging. You may possibly write in all upper-case letters to show you are excited about something, but then the bro you’re texting misinterprets said upper-case letters as anger. You might be writing something sarcastic or as a joke, and then your loved one reads the text and thinks you are being serious. People may even get offended if you don’t respond to their texts within minutes, thinking that you are intentionally ignoring them even if you may simply be busy at the moment and haven’t checked your phone yet. According to an article written by PR Web, texting has the potential to damage relationships, as although texting is a good way to reach your spouse, you don’t get to read body language and voice inflections you would be able to pick up if you were communicating with them face to face or even just on the phone, leading to a huge potential for miscommunication.
Misunderstandings over computer mediated communications has the potential to ruin lives. One major form of cmc that plays a huge role in many of our social lives is social media sites. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are all commonly-used social media platforms, and many of us do not make our tweets or statuses private on our Facebook and Twitter. This means that anyone would be able to view our pictures and what we have to say, especially on Twitter. I came across a New York Times article focusing on public shaming on social media, namely Twitter. As the article stated, a 30 year-old woman named Justine Sacco tweeted a casual joke, saying, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding!” in a matter of hours, what started off as a casual joke received backlash from multitudes of twitter users, who stalked all of her social media and constantly harassed her with death threats and hate mail, and Sacco was eventually fired from her job. Similar things happened to Lindsey Stone, a 32 year old woman who uploaded a Facebook picture of herself standing next to the Arlington National Cemetery and flipping her middle finger, and Alicia Ann Lynch, a 22 year old woman posted a picture of her “Boston Marathon Bombing” Halloween outfit on Twitter. Both of these women were fired from their jobs as well.
A joke you texted to your friend that you perhaps thought was funny could turn into a heated argument over iMessage, and a joke you shared on twitter has the potential to get you fired from your job. Although computer mediated communications has the benefit of convenient, near-instantaneous communication, texting and social media communications are missing verbal and facial cues, important elements to face to face communications. Unfortunately, computer mediated communications has the potential to go wrong, to go very wrong due to simple misunderstandings, and this is why computer mediated communications should never be used as much as face to face communication.
Article #1: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/11/prweb10192960.htm
Article #2: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?smid=fb-share
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