From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu 07 Nov 2002 - 02:35:51 GMT
>
>All:
>
>I have been online since 1983. I want to discuss briefly a couple of
>memetic changes I have seen during that time.
>
>It seems to me that misunderstandings in online discussions were more
>prevalent in the 80s than today. "You didn't read what I wrote," was a
>very common complaint. Without the cues of face to face communication,
>people often misread the tone of a note, usually assuming more
>negativity than was intended, but often assuming more intimacy, as well.
>Online discussion is a hot medium.
>
>To flesh out their online writing, by 1983 people were already using
>bracketed comments, particularly <smile>, <frown>, and <grin>, at the
>end of their sentences. <smile> and <grin> were often abbreviated to <s>
>and <g>, respectively. A minority of people were using emoticons like
>:-) and ;-). (There are other <smile> and <grin> emoticons, but I will
>use these as exemplars.) Over time the longer forms, <smile> and <grin>,
>became rare, and their abbreviations became more common. The emoticons'
>usage grew even more rapidly. With the explosive growth of the online
>population in the 90s the emoticons won out. Today you hardly ever see a
>bracketed comment.
>
>What caused these memetic changes?
>
>The rise of the abbreviations has easy explanations at hand. They were
>easier to type. Besides, initial abbrevition was already an established
>feature of English, as was the use of acronyms, which also flourished
>online. Also, a large portion of the online population were computer
>programmers, and saving keystrokes was a value for that group. Another
>reason perhaps had to do with expense. Online time was fairly expensive.
>I remember paying about $7/hr. Cutting down your online time, even a
>second here and there, was considered worth it. Those seconds added up.
>
>Why emoticons triumphed I am less sure about. It seems like a regression
>from alphabetic to iconic form. Their triumph coincided with the rise of
>GUIs, which most people find more convenient than console interfaces. We
>must remember Gould's point that evolution is not, ipso facto, progress.
>
>Why did alphabets and syllabaries evolve from iconic writing? A major
>reason is that using relatively few simple symbols to represent the
>sounds of a language is easier than using complex icons to represent
>more meaningful units. However, the use of iconic writing has a long
>history, and is arguably more congenial to the human visual processing
>of meaning than using symbols for sounds. This is a kind of argument
>from evolutionary psychology, that we evolved in an environment where we
>needed to interpret both visual and auditory signs and signals, but did
>not need to read. There is also an argument in terms of brain function.
>Translating from visual to auditory before deciphering the meaning of a
>symbol is less efficient than going directly from visual symbol to
>meaning. Note that when reading to yourself you do not pronounce these
>emoticons.
>
>Note that this memetic evolution is entirely in terms of expressions.
><smile>, <s>, and :-) all mean the same thing. This means that memes are
>*not* ideas, at least not all memes. The idea stayed the same while the
>expression evolved. Those favoring internal memes need to account for
>such change.
>
>Now I want to discuss a different kind of change for the :-) emoticon.
>In the mid-90s in an online discussion someone responded angrily to a
>nasty note. The nasty note writer replied, "I was just kidding. Didn't
>you see the :-)?" In a later discussion someone interpreted my :-) to
>mean that I wasn't serious about what I said. "Just kidding."
>
>The :-) added a meaning of "just kidding". That is curious, because a
>smile in conversation does not carry that meaning. Here is a possible
>explanation. Take the first example, where someone wrote something
>unfriendly and then added a :-) at the end. Since the :-) carries a
>friendly meaning there is a contradiction in tone. Adding the :-) says
>not to take the unfriendly tone seriously: just kidding. (IMX, the :-)
>in such cases often seems insincere, giving the writer an excuse if the
>other person responds negatively. "Hey, just kidding.") This meaning
>then got carried over into other contexts, where the tone is not
>unfriendly, so that :-) might mean that the writer is not serious about
>what he wrote: just kidding.
>
>I think that this is an example of one way that meanings change. An
>expression takes on a meaning in a certain context which is not just a
>narrowing of the original meaning. Such a contextual meaning is the
>difference in meaning between the context with and without the
>expression. Then this contextual meaning gets carried over into other
>contexts.
>
>Since the expression remains the same, this kind of memetic change poses
>a challenge for externally defined memes. Any definition of memes must
>address changes of both manifestation and meaning.
>
>Best to all,
>
>Bill
>
I think your analysis makes much more sense than the idea that we were
infected by emoticon memes. It's a good look at why people make the choices
they make and what they result in on a social basis.
Grant
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