Text Chat Is Emotional

Text messaging and chatting are becoming an important part of people's daily lives, and, as such, scientists thought it would be a good idea to investigate their effects on users' behavior when they talk to each other on-line. During a scientific experiment, several test subjects were paired and asked to talk between each other, in regard to their problems, after viewing sequences from movies.
 

One of the motion pictures featured a sad scene, and participants who watched it reportedly went into more depth about the way they felt at the moment and what issues they had in their lives. Their correspondents said that they could feel the sadness in their pairs even through text message. An important aspect was the way they wrote the sentences, using minimal words. The way they formulated their text was also offbeat, so the people they were talking to realized that something was wrong.
 

On the other hand, test subjects who previously watched a happy movie scene exhibited an enthusiastic behavior. Their counterparts reported that they could sense their excitement through the way the participants to the study wrote their ideas in the messenger. They used longer sentences, made jokes and used smileys more often than those watching a sad scene.
 

The study was conducted at the Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and focused on 44 test subjects, who were then divided into 22 pairs. The average discussion time was 15 to 20 minutes, during which time, each pair was asked to learn as much as they could about each other. The results revealed that emotions could also be transmitted through text messages, despite the fact that the chatters were inches or thousands of miles away.
 

These results should put an end to the widespread belief that text messaging "strips" people of their emotions. Ever-increasing customization accessories, such as avatars and status messages, make on-line messaging a highly-personal experience. With the addition of web cams and microphones to some communication platforms, it became possible to also hear and see the other person, thus making the experience even more complete.