Friday, September 4, 2009

The 'body language' of text chat

I think there's a certain 'body language' in text chat. It has to do with showing to the other person when you're typing something. In Skype you can deactivate that option but not in Yahoo Messenger. If you regularly chat with someone they develop a sense of how fast you type and think, therefore, someone can detect when you need time to think of something or whether you're re-typing/editing a text message.

For example if you answer 'yes that's great' to a proposal then depending on the amount of time it took you to write the message the other person could infer that you don't think it's that great. Usually you start typing something then change your mind and want to edit the text, that is a hidden body language that the other person can see. It's not a bad thing but it's something to be aware of.

If you want to avoid being detected that you needed time to think of something, then type in a separate notepad window and cut and paste when ready

http://thinkaloo.com

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