Editing 1886: Typing Notifications
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete|Simple comic, anything missing? Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
− | + | [[Randall]] has sent a message on an instant messenger to someone else. The message contains simple questions about a show Randall must have undertaken and he insists on an honest answer. The reader tries several times to give a proper answer, probably changing the text, until giving up and sending a simple kind reply. | |
− | + | Typing notifications, often called "typing awareness indicator", is a feature of some {{w|instant messaging}} systems. It lets you know when the other person in a conversation is typing and preparing a reply. It may appear in different forms, like the literal text "[Contact] is typing." or often has a empty answer (possibly a different color) containing three animated dots. It gives the sender confidence that their message has been received and the other one is working on a reply. | |
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+ | When the final response is received it is anodyne "It was great", suggesting that the first two deleted drafts could be far more critical. The fact that you know that a message has been deleted or edited twice provokes you to imagine what the deleted drafts may have contained. The issue with typing notifications that Randall is talking about might also just be the difficulty to interpret them. The distant contact might just have been doing something else at the same time, started typing in the wrong conversation, or corrected a typo, but the typing notifications make it seem like they weren't honest. | ||
If one partner of a conversation takes their sweet time to reply, possibly deleting their text and starting from scratch as shown in this comic, the typing notification feature can lead to anxiety, as the person waiting for a response starts to overthink the issue. Thoughts come to mind like the other person might not be honest, try to carefully word a sensitive subject or not care enough about you to quickly reply. If finally the answer arrives and consists of just a laconic "ok" or similar, these feelings become even stronger, leading to thoughts like the other person is trying to hide something. This phenomenon has become so widespread that many people have written about it in newspapers and blogs, calling it [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/fashion/texting-anxiety-caused-by-little-bubbles.html texting anxiety]. | If one partner of a conversation takes their sweet time to reply, possibly deleting their text and starting from scratch as shown in this comic, the typing notification feature can lead to anxiety, as the person waiting for a response starts to overthink the issue. Thoughts come to mind like the other person might not be honest, try to carefully word a sensitive subject or not care enough about you to quickly reply. If finally the answer arrives and consists of just a laconic "ok" or similar, these feelings become even stronger, leading to thoughts like the other person is trying to hide something. This phenomenon has become so widespread that many people have written about it in newspapers and blogs, calling it [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/fashion/texting-anxiety-caused-by-little-bubbles.html texting anxiety]. | ||
− | + | In the title text, Randall mentions opening a blank note to compose a reply, which consists of writing a reply in a separate application and pasting the fully written message before sending it. This may be done for several reasons, like knowing that the answer will be long, and wanting a more useful interface - like a bigger typing area. This may also be done when the person doesn't want their contact to know that an answer is being written, possibly because the answer is a difficult one, and will probably need several attempts and edits before sending. Another reason could be to avoid sending an incomplete or unpolished reply by accident. So while Randall thinks that typing notifications are overall a good thing, he is still glad that they don't include that side case, either because it leaves a way to bypass them, or because "has opened a blank note to compose a reply" informs the contact that the answer is not going to be a typical and nice short message. | |
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==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
+ | {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
:[A sequence of eight panels representing the same conversation in an electronic chat. The header always reads:] | :[A sequence of eight panels representing the same conversation in an electronic chat. The header always reads:] | ||
:What did you think of my show? Did you like it? Be honest! | :What did you think of my show? Did you like it? Be honest! | ||
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[[Category:Computers]] | [[Category:Computers]] | ||
[[Category:Social networking]] | [[Category:Social networking]] | ||
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