In watching the evolution of communication online, it’s been interesting to note how cybernauts have resolved the problem of the lack of body language in this medium. As any Internet user can tell you, an entire code has been developed to convey the human emotions that one cannot see in cyberspace. These typed symbols – most commonly called emoticons or smileys – give a degree of life and individuality to online expression.
To view a Western smiley, tilt your head to the left. Among the most common examples:
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Basic smiley (shows humour/happiness) |
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A wink (shows you’re being a flirt or sarcastic) |
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A frown (means you’re sad, depressed, or have hurt feelings) |
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Crying |
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Laughter, or a really big grin |
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A kiss |
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Sticking out your tongue |
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’My lips are sealed.’ |
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Astonished |
In contrast, here’s a sampling of Japanese kao maaku (face marks) which are meant to be viewed straight on:
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Happy face |
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Weeping face |
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Banzai smiley (arms raised in a traditional cheer) |
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Excited face |
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Cold sweat |
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‘I’m sorry’ |
The Internet is also creating its very own language, one that steals from everyone, from stenographers to street kids. Many of us have become adept at the standard abbreviations of the Net: using BTW instead of writing out ‘by the way’; IMHO, for ‘in my humble opinion’; POV instead of ‘point of view.’ We’ve also usurped shorthand made popular by urban black youth in the US: dis as a stand-in for ‘disrespect’; 24/7 to mean twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week’. As Europeans and Asians establish more of a presence in Internet chatrooms and newsgroups, we suspect Euro and Asian slang will infiltrate commonly used cyberlingo. At the same time, we’ll be seeing cyberlingo begin to infiltrate language offline. Already, our former Dutch colleagues are using BTW and ITRW (short for ‘in the real world’) in everyday conversation. And just as African-American slang has pervaded American language in the 1990s (courtesy of rap music), geek-speak has pervaded the jargon of business life in the US.
Wired World?
Europe Online
So, just how long will it take for the Internet to become a truly global medium? At present, the Internet is dominated by North Americans, as is apparent from the chart below.1
Western Europe is an affluent, educated continent with a high penetration of high-tech appliances and good telecommunications infrastructure. So how come it’s so far behind the United States with regard to Internet adoption?
To be fair, there are exceptions. Northern Europe in general has many more computer and Internet users than does southern Europe. In fact, the far away Finns, famous even amongst themselves for being people of few words, boast the world’s highest per capita proportion of Internet servers and users, and ‘greater Scandinavia’ is easily the world’s best-connected region, according to a new compendium of Net-related statistics called the Internet Industry Almanac. The study found that Finland has 244.5 Net users per 1,000 people. Its northern neighbours also rated high. Norway second (231.1), Iceland third (227.3), Sweden eighth (147.3) and Denmark tenth (125.6). The United States clocked in at fourth, with 203.4 Net users per 1,000 people. The worldwide user rate is 16.9.2
Who’s Online? April 1998 World Total: 115.75 Million
In contrast to the Scandinavians, not even 1 per cent of the loquacious Italians use the Internet, according to Marco Lombardi, planning director at Y&R Italia Milan. Italian marketing consultant Giancarlo Livraghi (http://gandalf.it/netmark/) blames this poor showing on technophobia and fears about the dangers of the Internet: ‘Families (as well as politicians and teachers) are bombarded every day with sensationalism and misinformation that makes them uncomfortable and scares them away.’
Climate and social customs probably play a part, too. Long, dark, hard winters force northern Europeans to spend many months of the year indoors – ideal for developing computer skills and networking with other people online. As Katerina Varenius of Hall & Cederquist/Y&R Stockholm puts it: ‘The trend is that we will see less of these people out in the garden, since they will be sitting in front of the computer. The computer is a fully legitimate place to be – you don’t have to explain to anybody whether you do something useful or not.’ By the same token, the long, fine summers of southern Europe just invite pavement café and beach life – why shut yourself away with a computer and modem when you can go out and socialize in the sun?
Language is cited as an obstacle to non-English-speakers using the Internet – the vast majority of websites are American and many non-US sites have English-language versions. Yet the Internet hasn’t yet caught on big time in the UK, which obviously has no language problem. Some analysts speculate