Seriously, anyone who wants to misconstrue or misunderstand a communication will do so, no matter how or where we express ourselves.

Anyone lacking in a sense of humor will nitpick or take offense–attidude? Hail yeah, this is the Appalachian South. Look in any tavern parking lot and you can pick up plenty of it. Neologisms aren’t illegal (yet?).

I don’t use Twitter, but it sounds like a good alternative to IM’s, especially when dealing with kids, bosses, or anyone who wants to argue back. The character limit also limits potential long-winded disagreements and logorrhea.

Twitter might not be your favorite way to communicate, but that doesn’t make it a fake form of communication.

It’s amazing, that with all the tools (email, IM, text messaging, cell phones, etc.) that people really don’t understand what “communication” is.

It’s not sound bites. 144 character Twitter posts or abbreviated text messages.

It’s not even, from what I hear on the streets, a phone call.

No, this kind of stuff is just about shouting “I’m here” or “Where are you”, etc.

It’s all perfect for lazy folks who don’t plan ahead (My least favorite cell calls? People in supermarkets and other stores, walking up and down the aisles reading labels.) or who don’t seem to care what they say or where and who hears them.

It’s NOT communication. It’s perhaps an information exchange.

Most people today are not, frankly, interested in conversation or communication.

Think of all the folks in companies who hide behind email memos.

Of course, most people really have little to say anyway, so…

There are too many ways to “communicate” today and since everyone has a preference, it’s virtually impossible to find the time/energy/resources to maintain contact except when absolutely necessary.

I know people who never read email. Don’t answer cell phones. Refuse to accept text messages. Hate IM. Are never home for a landline call. or will only talk while they are driving in a car(And I will not call anyone who I know is driving.)

It’s the reason we really only can keep in touch with a very few people. Too many options, too many choices and too many guidelines from too many people. (No don’t call us here, call us there. Etc. Etc.)

Technology is only as good as what it delivers. Most does not enhance interpersonal relationships. If anything, it makes them worse.

And who has the time to follow people on Twitter? And who even cares? Real people with real lives don’t have time to Twitter. Or keep up with the so-called “friends” on facebook or myspace.com

It’s all a substitution for the real thing: BEING with people and just actually talking face to face.

One exception: Video conferencing for families and friends. They should have these in all nursing homes, hospitals and ALFs, for example, so families can “talk”/see their family and friends who are out of town.

Video conferencing is also great for biz travelers.

But again, no substitute for the real thing.

If most people today knew how to read and write (they don’t), they could write real LETTERS.

There’s a place for them.

You can transport information from one person to another without waking up the person because of different timezones or without having to wait until the other person logs on to IM. You don’t disturb a meeting because you called at the wrong time. You don’t have to talk to the voicebox and can only leave a message like “call me back, please” because your subject would be to long and complicated to explain on the phone anyway.

You just send an e-mail and don’t care if the person reads and answers it right now. You need an answer, just not right now.

Just make sure to use the right medium for your communication needs. I simply don’t want to have to tell service hotlines part numbers or registration numbers with 20 letters or more and spell out my name and address multiple times because of bad connections or whatnot. I also don’t want to have to wait a quarter of an hour because the service hotline is busy.

Just write an e-mail and send it.

Next time, please talk about why many companies only send form letters back or refuse to be contacted by e-mail at all.

I’d of rather seen this article named “Why Many Humans are Incapable of Handling Email Maturely”

The other issue they totally didn’t address here is that text based interaction removes the immediate feed back of another person there, you de-humanise them and forget you are talking to a real person. When you talk via text over a computer to someone (by email, chat, or bbs, or whatever) it is very easy to forget that you are talking to a real person and so you might not be as nice as you would be in person. I’ve seen this happen time and time again in online communities, people stop being people and start being weird handles that only exist conceptually “I didn’t flame a person, I flamed sillyuser125″

So, in most every case the problem is with the maturity of the people you are dealing with, not the tool. I wouldn’t give a gun to someone who was too immature to handle it, but luckily email doesn’t kill.