WEEK 4 Assignment

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The two people that I chose to write were my mother and father. I did this because I couldn’t think of anyone else who would have taken me seriously or thought it was some kind of joke (in the past I have been known for practical jokes and I make fun of almost everything that I possibly can).  I wrote to my mother in long hand and wrote to my father via email. I decided to write to my mother in long hand because of time constraints. A letter written to my father would take much longer to send since he lives in another country.

One thing that I noticed right off the bat was that writing my long hand letter to my mother was a much more time consuming process. I really had to think about what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, the stamp I picked out for the envelope, the color of the pen I wrote with, the type of pen, and even the stationary that I wanted to write the letter on (I made several drafts)! Now the email was done in less than ten minutes, I just cranked it out. The major difference I noticed was the intimacy of each form of communication. I feel this was in direct line with the Social Presence Theory where “The degree of the connection is based on the amount of substance to an interaction. The degree of the connection is based on the amount of nonverbal information available to the receiver through any particular channel” (Wood and Smith p. 80). To elaborate, the long hand letter had many “Non-verbal” information and “cues” (Wood and Smith p. 79). For example, the complications I just mentioned I had encountered while writing the letter (pen color, stationary, stamps etc) to me were all forms of non-verbal communication. The social presence that my mother perhaps felt was much more powerful, she can see that not only did a lot of sincere thought go into the letter, but careful planning on its creation as well.  I used very soft and fine paper and it looked very nice and well put together, just like its content. How would she have responded to the same letter written in crayon on a bar napkin? Not the same right? It’s the same message; it just doesn’t have the non-verbal flavor or aesthetic beauty.

Now, about the email. I fall into the “Impersonal” category when it comes to about 99.9% of my CMC. I don’t like using the internet for communication because I favor face to face interaction. I don’t like the ambiguity of the “cues-filtered-out approach” (Wood and Smith p. 79). When I write emails they are short, to the point and a very seldom misinterpreted because I intend them to be crystal clear. So my father received a pretty dry and business like email. Do to the relationship my father and I have I told him to give me a call at the end of my email so I could explain that “No, this isn’t a joke and no I’m not dying or something”.

Both my messages were immediately followed up with a phone call from both parents. I explained to them it was part of a school assignment and not to be alarmed, once again, I had to explain I wasn’t going to die or something. Maybe I should write more letters like that…….

Anyway, I thought about the implications my experience had in reference to society as a whole. We all view long hand letters to be more intimate and meaningful just for the reasons I described. You can really make someone’s day by sending them a letter. It’s this physical tangible “package”. You can really send a lot of non-verbal cues by adding some of the things I described, nice handwriting is especially important because it makes your message aesthetically pleasing as well (it’s hard to make an email into something you want to save for later or put on display for aesthetic reasons). For society we most all have this point of view, that long hand letters are more intimate than emails, which has to do with “social context cues” (Wood and Smith p. 81) Just to give you another example of an experience I recently had, a friend of mine was injured in a random senseless act of violence last week. He was presently in the hospital under stable conditions. I was deeply shocked and hurt by the incident and I felt terrible.  I decided to send him a “Get Well” letter wishing him a full recovery. My whole family signed the card. Could you imagine if I sent him an email? “Hey there, I heard about what happened. That sucks. Get well. Sincerely, JustinJ”.  Not the same thing is it?

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