Representing Ourselves

 

It is clear from this class experience that the interactions between ourselves, and even our personalities, were mediated by the particular interface we used in class. A face-to-face class meeting had different priorities, goals and potentials than one that met in Comic Chat or Virtual Places. I will try to enumerate the versions of the stories we encountered across these interfaces.

 

The face-to-face interface is perhaps the most obvious, but also the most misleading. Because we take in-person meetings as the norm in the University, we do not always realize the type of social rules that exist in these meetings until we leave them for another form. The f2f situation was characterized by turn-taking, a modicum of respect for opinion, and a general emphasis on a through line of conversation. The meetings were clearly led by Shelly, and we took turns responding to an issue that was, initially at least, brought out by her. These structures are perhaps difficult to notice because we use them everyday and they seem so normal. But in fact they are of a particular type: linear, hierarchical and literate. This is of course not the only way to skin a cat.

 

Take Virtual Places, for example. Because we had avatar pictures that were not ourselves, there was immediate gender mix-up, as well as identity confusion. Also, because there was no sound available, there was numerous overlapping conversations. This led to a general multi-tasking of the conversation. Shelly may have thrown out the initial idea, but by the end of the session, the idea had fragmented into several sub-strings and related ideas. This anonymity combined with fragmentation is a unique situation to chat rooms with masked avatars. It happens in other similar sites, such as AOL chats rooms and MUDs, and is a hallmark of the distributed conversation. It is not necessarily bad, but rather prevents us from accomplishing certain things we could do face to face. Long conversations are impossible. A rigorous through line to an idea is also difficult. However, idea generation is facilitated. Thus the Johnson stories generated here invest the avatar with the meaning. I have a chat with Barbie2000 or MaterialGirl and I could expect a certain type of talk given the name. I could be corrected, but I have a first impression.

 

In the chat system we used with John, we were able to add sound. The avatars became 3D as well. The immediate reaction was that sound restored the linear quality to the conversation, because politeness dictated that only one person speak at a time. However, it was also clear that many side conversations were occurring among those people in the same room (i.e. same computer room) at the same time, which were not distributed to the rest of the class. Thus the effect was more like whispering in class where the teacher can’t hear. This I did not find that effective. It fostered divisiveness as well as a fractured attention span. I think for sound to work in these chat systems, the microphone has to be on all the time for all those logged into the room. Perhaps one could temporarily toggle it off, but one should be able to hear everyone all the time as the default.

 

My favorite, however, was Comic Chat. There the emotions attached to the comic figures not only mapped out an emotional space for those involved, but the emotions that were registered were in fact more distinct that those only expressed verbally in, say, Virtual Places. The flipside, however, was that it was possible to inadvertantly overexaggerate the emotion you were projected because of its comic rendering. One had to assume all the time that the emotions printed to the screen were the true emotions the person wished to express. But even if they were correct, the mere comic drawing of them sometimes overshot the mark. However, I truly enjoyed this exaggeration of our thoughts in a non-traditional graphic manner. I think the conversation became much freer and the whole experience much more fun. Maybe not the way to run a business meeting unless you’re severely post-modern, but still a very liberating experience. I think the situation could be improved even more with synthesized comic sound being added so surprise could sound like Minnie Mouse or anger by Donald Duck.

 

In sum, the interface clearly affects the way we interacted. Perhaps this is a trivial conclusion, but I don’t think so. As the digital age progresses, we will all become more adept at manipulating our individual avatars, no matter what the environment. As Jane Jetson used spray on her morning face in order to answer the video telephone, soon all of our avatars will become proprietary objects of ourselves, easily manipulated and more importantly, easily recognizable. We will all become masters of disguise and our true thoughts will become extremely clear yet as masked as they are face to face. The digital future is so bright, you’ll have to wear shades.