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Explore the ways that users of digital media re-create some aspects of face to face communication. SMS (or text messaging) is very popular. A study by FOCI (who work in the UK communications industry) have found that in the UK in 2014 around 1 50 billion text messages were sent that year. Users are from all age groups, however it is most common in the 14-20 year old age category. On the APS you can use moss’s to make it easier to express emotions and make it more like a face to face conversation. However messaging is causing a huge debate; mom people love it but some loathe it.
An article written by John Humphrey in the Daily mail called ‘I ha txt megs: How testing is wrecking our language’. However Garage Patton form the Telegraph newspaper took a different view; his article was Text messaging ‘improves children’s spelling skills’ When messaging someone we use ‘turn taking’ this is much like in a face to face conversation. This is because in an orderly face to face conversation people take turns when speaking. This is also done when testing. For instance when I was talking to my mum she said ‘Where are you? Replied saying ‘at the bus lanes’, she then said ‘k will be 2 miss’ to which I replied ‘k cheers. ‘ Turn taking is very important in both face to face and digital media, it shows that people are equal in the conversation also because if there was one person talking then it would not be conversation, just a person talking to them self. When I am testing a friend, I often do not use the correct words because it is easier because it is much quicker to type it than spell the whole word out. This makes it more like a face to face conversation because I often use acronyms like ‘OMG’ (Oh my God) or ‘101’ (laugh out loud).
Sometimes when testing on my phone tend to use acronyms quite often. For instance in a conversation with my friend Charlie I said ‘OMG, you have to watch this video LOL’ to which he replied ‘MOD that is so funny. In a face to face conversation with him then might phrase it the same. The reason that I used acronyms was because I was lazy and it was quicker just to shorten what I was saying by using these. Shortening words can be good for different things especially in testing because it makes it quicker also you can learn new words.
For instance there are acronyms in the dictionary such as ‘OMG’ (Oh my God) and ‘LOL’ (Laugh out loud). Emoticons are ranges of different facial expressions shown as a small face when a user of text messaging wants to show their emotion. There is an emoticon for almost every emotion. An example of use of emoticons is me testing my friend Sam. Sam messaged me saying ‘l fell over and hurt my knee :'( (this is a crying face emoticon) he sends this to shoe that he is hurt. Much like in a face to face conversation he is showing that he is upset but with the use of an emoticon. Plied to his message saying ‘You mug! (This is a laughing emoticon) this shows that I am laughing at him, am showing that I find in funny by using this emoticon. This makes it more realistic because by using this emoticon have shown my facial expression. It made him understand that I was laughing at him. Another way that digital media re-creates some aspects of face to face communication is that I use phonetic spelling. Use this in both a face to face conversation and on text messaging. Do this when testing because it shortens the word and consequently shortening the amount of time needed o type it.
I also use phonetic spelling when talking face to face with someone, usually because it shortens the amount Of vowels needed to say the word/ phrase and because it is becoming more common in speech. For instance said to my friend via text ‘how r u? ‘ instead of ‘how are you? To which he replied, ‘gar mm, u? ‘ He used a number of different phonetic spellings in this. He said ‘gar instead of ‘great’ this is because he would have pronounced it like this is a face to face conversation also because it is (like acronyms) shorter to type.
Also he used ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ this is also how he would have pronounced it in a face to face conversation. People use phonetic spelling because it is shorter to type and also because it sounds more like it would in a normal face to face conversation, therefore making it sound more like you are standing next to and talking to the person. Accent is another way of digital media re-creating aspects of face to face conversation.