Is nature the way people relate to each other actually undergoing a change because of online communication? Or is interpersonal communication still essentially the same, with online modes of communication simply offering new opportunities for us to communicate (as miscommunicate)?.
To a certain extent, interpersonal communication is still essentially the same when discussed in areas such as the way people talk to one another or the tone and style of writing is more or less the same, only the mode of transmitting a message has been changed over the past few decades. And there is no doubt that online communication devices and software have aided and facilitated the situation. Moreover, online communication, for example emails and text messages are in fact no different from letters and notes from the olden days. Writing itself creates ambiguity when compared to face-to-face situations. Writing itself contains inference and implication when presented to and by two or more people. When direct confrontation is omitted, one simply does not exactly know what the other is actually feeling or want to express, in other words, one can only guess. I believe there has been a misconception that only online communication is difficult for the recipient to interpret the sender's message.
However, since the technological advancement of online modes of communication, from simply emails to MSN to Facebook to Twitter to Tumblr and so on, people, especially among peers or family, have availed oneself of the opportunity to send a message in the fastest way, they start to use abbreviations like "OMG" (oh my god) or "BRB" (be right back) or "ROTFL"(rolling on the floor laughing) all these kinds of so-called "internet language". Some people use the computer so often to communicate with their friends that they tend to forget in what situation they should use such abbreviated language use it in their school assignments.
