Social Hacking

Sorry for the scatters updates. I've be a little busy the last weeks with school work and then I also finished the Stockholm Marathon. Yes, I just had to mention that.

Back on topic; analyzing conversations. This is a subject that I think is very interesting and it's surprisingly hard. What I mean with analyzing conversations is the ability to read between the lines. What is a person trying to say even though he or she did not write or say it. I am going to focus on chat (written conversations) this time. When it comes to irl (geek abbreviation for in real life) conversations there is a lot more that you can pay attention to like body language etc. However, I'll leave that for now.

I'll start of with and example that I saw a while ago. It was a discussion between dating advisors. I was not part of this discussion. The discussion was about how a thank you SMS should be analyzed. They had three examples messages, all of them said "Thank you for last night". However, the first one ended with a period, the second one with nothing and the third one with three periods. The "experts" conclusion was that the first one (that ended with one period) was bad. It meant that the person sending the message just sent it because he felt obligated to do so. The second message (nothing after night) meant that the sender did enjoy last night, but not to much. The last message (ending with "..."

) was the best response. Because it meant that the sender really enjoyed last night and that he or she wanted to do something similar again.

You have probably already seen the problem with analyzing conversations just for this example. Everyone does not act the same way and everyone does their own interpretation. It is really easy to over analyze conversations and come to conclusions that the other part did not mean at all. I have been trying to stop analyzing things that people write and just concentrate on what they literary write but it is really hard. We even read between the lines subconsciously.

This can also be important to think about if you are sending a message to someone. Try to read between the lines of your own message and try to put yourself in the readers shoes and think about how they will interpret the message. However, don't do it to much either. I really think the world would be better if people did not analyze messages at all. However, we are humans with a subconscious.

As you might have analyzed from what I have written you might have come to the conclusion that I don't really like the subject. If you did come to that conclusion you are absolutely right. Yes, I do think it's interesting, but I don't like that it is done.

If you have read my previous post (or chatted with me) you have probably realized that I never use smilies (the sideways turned faces with different expressions). The reason for this is that everyone interpret these smilies differently. Take this smiley has an example: : P. How do you interpret that smiley? When I used it, I though of it as a joking face. When I ended a sentence with a : P I was not being all that serious, pointing something obvious, or just being sarcastic. However, I have asked how others interpret the : P smiley and I have gotten too many different answers.

So, I think that was enough of an intro to the subject. Next time I will tell you how I do interpret different conversations. However, I think it is important to read this first and understand that everyone thinks differently. What I say next time is just how I think, not general guide lines.