╠ I don't talk to people ╣

Recently I have been thinking about communication. The way I've looked at it I perceive it to be be broken down as talking to people and talking at people and this is decided by the socially expected requirement of instant response.

In a normal real life conversation you talk and then the socially respected return is to respond. The same exists for phone conversations.

However email and SMS are different. Whilst a response usually may be expected, the uncertainty of when the message is received by the user leads to the social acceptance that an instant reply back is not required usually. While it may be required the social norm is that an email response isn't as socially expected as a response in conversation. This is what I consider to be talking at people.

There are some mediums that can seem unclear. MSN for example is a good step closer to talking to someone however again that reply is not instantly expected, MSN is most cases an activity done while engaging in something else, be it surfing or whatever, the point is you can usually give a minute or two to wait for a reply without getting too irate depending on the situation. It is this that makes it a talking at medium.

The benefit of talking at someone is that you get the chance to structure a response, however this is usually at the cost of emotion. Emotion is a powerful tool in communication and is a large factor when it comes to building relationships.

Brands can only talk at people.