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I believe in “medium fidelity”, which means I try to return all correspondence at the level it was sent or higher. Whenever possible I am faithful to the medium I receive because Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message.”
The various ways in which people communicate in the 21st century can be ranked hierarchically according to the level of intimacy. Below are the levels of communication I believe between two people, from most intimate to least intimate:
1. Sexual intercourse: When blood rushes through the mingled mounds of flesh and one body penetrates another, this act of intimacy is able to convey more information than spoken language. Lovemaking is a somatic poem, a dynamic sculpture, clouds dancing and breathing through each other. And sometimes it can be entertaining, fun, uplifting, enlightening and fun. These most intimate events of the initial encounter should command at least 10% of your conscious attention (unless, of course, you’re with Bill Cosby.) Wildly intimate.
2. Surgery: Most people prefer to be heavily sedated during surgery, so this kind of intimacy is rather one-sided (see Bill Cosby), but inserting fingers and medical instruments inside another human is often a very personal gesture. Very intimate.
3. Catheterizing someone or administering a colonic: Generally, these two sections of human anatomy are heavily hidden under trousers and underwear. It can be even more embarrassing than having sex when another man plays with them. Being exposed and vulnerable in this way can lead to unexpected emotions. very intimate.
4. A cat or dog is asleep on your neck: Anyone who has experienced this will attest to the fact that it is a great expression of faith and love. For both of you. very intimate.
5. Telepathy: Although not scientifically verified at present, many people believe that they can share thoughts with other people without using spoken language. Being emotionally connected to another person and being aware of their thoughts will be extremely intimate as little secrets can remain. On the other hand, when only one party believes in such communication, it probably means that he is delusional, codependent, or both. Probably very close, but unlikely.
6. Face-to-face interaction in real life (IRL).: Looking into another person’s eyes while talking is quite an intimate experience. Your subconscious is picking up non-verbal cues including pheromones, sweat and other smells, subtle expressions of pain, comfort, discomfort, joy, sarcasm, love, irony — there is literally a panoply of visual, auditory and olfactory information that is transmitted — a smorgasbord of information and information. very intimate.
7. FaceTime or Skyping: Here pheromones and other olfactory signals are lost, three dimensions are reduced to two dimensions, but visual signals and auditory reflexes remain perceptible. It’s a little less intimate than meeting someone face-to-face. fairly intimate.
8. Telephone calls: Non-verbal cues are now removed. However, higher emotions are still communicable and different shades of empathy are still possible. Moderately intimate.
9. Sign Language: For people who cannot hear, sign language is an excellent way to convey ideas, thoughts and emotions. Facial expressions, movements and hand gestures convey a wide range of information, and the sense of smell also helps. Moderately intimate.
10. Fax: Like books, faxes can convey much information symbolized in words composed of alphabetic characters and then interpreted by the receiver. When words are used for poetry they are able to convey different nuances, flavors and rhythms. In business letters, they are able to convey specific legally binding information. Fax machines replaced the ancient tradition of letter writing, but still had the ability to sign your name animatedly or studiously and express limited tone. Not terribly intimate.
11. Email: Similar to faxes, but due to their widespread use, it appears that people spend much less time and effort writing emails than writing formal letters. Most emails aren’t written with much care and most of them are just lifeless black words and white screens. Not terribly intimate.
12. Hieroglyphics: This form of communication used symbols to represent the daily life of people in ancient Egypt. We don’t know the exact lexicon for these images so we can only guess what they mean Not intimate.
13. Cave paintings: This form of communication also used symbols to represent the daily life of Neanderthal people in Europe. We do not know the exact lexicon of these images so it remains difficult to translate them into our modern language Not intimate.
14. Text Messages: Although useful for conveying real-time information such as “running late” or “will call you later in a meeting”, the limited symbols and emoticons employed in text messages are unable to convey any of the nuances of the above forms of communication. Completely devoid of intimacy.
15. Smoke signals: Native Americans employed this remedial form of visual communication to unambiguously signal danger to others over long distances. Completely devoid of intimacy.
As you can see from the list above, when the history books are sealed, text messages will fall somewhere between cave paintings and smoke signals in terms of intimately communicating information. And like all organized religions to which people are motivated, the bad definitely outweighs the good. The downside of trying to convey anything important via text is more of an upside because misinterpretation is rife.
In particular, temporal errors in text conversations often lead to subtexting, when your mind adds telepathic inferences when you’re a “ghost.” For example, in response to a non-response, your mind might ask, “Why did she suddenly stop texting: Did she disapprove of (fill in the blank) something I wrote? Hate me? Laughing off her ass and convulsing so hard she’s unable to text “lmao”? Is she busy? Did her boss just walk away with the text? Metal with more fines?” etc.
After all, humanity would be saved from infinite disorder and dysfunction if text were consigned to the dustbin of history with 8-track tapes and smoke signals. And, like cats, we are able to develop our telepathic abilities.
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This post was Originally published Medium and republished here with permission of the author.
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Photo credit: istock
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