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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Thought Question: A kinder and gentler net??
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Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 17:06:52 GMT
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In article <D3C8yE.236@hpl.hp.com> curry@hpl.hp.com (Bo Curry) writes:
>Jeff Dalton (jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk) wrote:
>: I don't know if it's a *practical* matter, but in net discussions
>: people often have a lot of trouble understanding other people.
>: I suspect that they're significantly better at understanding
>: themselves.
>
>Is this just because of the substantially higher bandwidth,
>or do you think there is some difference in *kind*?

Both?  Neither?  I wouldn't have picked either description.

Higher bandwidth (or something along those lines) may be a factor,
and it may also matter that the information is obtained in different
ways.  Face-to-face communication is often more effective then net
communication and that may involve similar factors.  However, even
talking on the phone is often more effective than net talk.

As for *kind*, I'm not sure just what you'd count as kind.  When
I'm thinking about something, I don't do it by sending messages
to myself over the Internet.  Maybe that's a difference in kind?

-- jeff



