Читать книгу Touch - Tod Maffin - Страница 9

Communications

Used with permission © Rob Cottingham, Noise to Signal. http://robcottingham.ca/cartoon/

Firestarter

Mark’s “cousin-in-law,” Patrick, gathered up some VHS tapes of Christmases and family gatherings dating back to the 1970s. He emailed his mother a short time later to enthusiastically tell her, “Just watched old home movies from when we were kids. Now I’m going to burn them.”

Aunt Barb was stunned. “Thanks a lot, Pat,” she wrote back sarcastically and more than a bit hurt. “You must have really enjoyed your childhood.”

We love how each so easily misunderstood the other; Aunt Barb thinking Pat’s digitizing of home movies was a cathartic destruction of family history, and Pat thinking his mom would be pleased that he had such great memories they were worth immortalizing. (It all worked out in the end and copies of the DVD were circulated, complete with footage of Mark’s wife toddling around in cozy one-piece pyjamas.)

Misunderstandings are often the rule, not the exception, in digital communication. Language is nuanced by emotions, grammatical devices, and generation gaps. Character counts and other constraints lead to creative use of language to communicate ideas in limited space.