- "They disclosed over four times as much when they
talked over the Internet as when they talked face-to-face" -
Psychologist
Dr Adam Joinson.
-
- People are psychologically
driven to get personal when
talking by e-mail, a new study shows.
Conversations over the Internet
are far more revealing than when they
take place face to face, psychologists
have found.
-
- E-mailing strips away
inhibitions because it changes
the normal rules of communication, say
the scientists.
-
- The result can be highly embarrassing - as in the case
of the
intimate e-mail exchange between a city solicitor and his girlfriend
that surfaced last week.
-
- Bradley Chait and Claire Swire's exchanges ended up
being
forwarded around the world and read by an estimated 10 million
people.
-
- Psychologist Dr Adam Joinson said his findings suggested
that
if the couple had been able to see each other with webcams they would
not have been so indiscreet.
-
- Dr Joinson's team from the Open University asked 83
pairs
of students, all strangers to each other, to resolve a
dilemma.
-
- They had to discuss the question: "If only five
people in
the world could be saved from a nuclear holocaust, who should
they
be?"
-
- The students had to talk over the problem either face
to face,
or via computers. A note was taken of how many personal disclosures
they made.
-
- Dr Joinson, who presented his findings at the British
Psychological Society's London conference, said: "They disclosed
over four times as much when they talked over the Internet as when they
talked face-to-face."
-
- Fitting the computers with webcams so the students could
see each other immediately killed the conversation.
-
- They revealed no more than if
they had been in the same
room together.
-
- Generally the disclosures were
not particularly intimate,
involving information such as where people
went to school or used to
live.
-
- But sometimes students started
discussing sexual partners,
early relationships and personal
childhood experiences.
-
- "There were occasions when they were discussing
quite intimate things, including sexual fantasies," said Dr
Joinson.
-
- The researchers found that a webcam on-screen image allowing
students to see themselves as they were talking had a strange and dramatic
effect. The level of self-disclosure rocketed.
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- Why This
Happens
-
- Dr Joinson believes we get personal when talking by
e-mails
because of the way people become more open when they are
focused in on
themselves.
-
- Talking over the Internet did away with non-verbal
aspects
of communications such as eye-contact and body posture, said Dr
Joinson.
-
- "You have to adapt your language to say that you're
joking
or flirting or whatever without visual clues, and put it in text,"
he said.
-
- "To some extent you have to make up for the lack
of body
language.
-
- "Being focused on your feelings more makes it more
likely
that you're going to disclose stuff about yourself. You can't see
the
person, so you are less concerned about the impact what you are saying
will have.
-
- "You end up with this potent brew, as we saw in
the case
last week of the saucy e-mail that was sent around.
-
- "It's a para-language,
almost a new way of talking."
-
- If webcams had been available
to Bradley Chait and Claire
Swire it may have save them a lot of
embarrassment, said Dr Joinson.
-
- "If they'd had a picture of the other person on
screen while they were communicating, my research would suggest that
message
might not have been sent," he said.
-
- The e-mail phenomenon was not
new, however.
-
- In Victorian times, women were known to flirt with men
over
telegraph wires using Morse code, said Dr. Joinson.
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