Are smart phones really smart?

A collogue of mine (this is a shout-out to you Phil) brought to my attention an article written by Berkos (2010) discussing the role of imagined interaction in online communication.  Berkos (2010) explains that “computer mediated communication (CMC) is as much a part of their social life as talking on the telephone.”  People use the Internet to socialize via email, newsgroups, discussion boards, blogs, and instant messenger (IM).  With the adoption and wide-spread usage of smart phones, the telephone is no longer solely a form of verbal communication.  The boundaries are further blurred as people can have CMC on smart-phones.  People are using smart phones less and less for verbal communication and instead they are generating emails, text messages, and social media updates more frequently.  Nie et al. (2004) explains that the average Internet user in the United States spends 3 hours a day online.  Most of this online time is associated with work with more than half attributed to communication. 

The most interesting fact to me from the Berkos (2010) article was that CMC allows for multiple drafts to be written with extreme ease.  Not only can one rewrite and create several drafts but they can be saved, revisited, and send to multiple receivers.  Online communication provides benefits that hand written communication does not allow.  Although, the nature of CMC allows for multiple drafts, I am uncertain if all Internet users employ that method.  In particular, I have come across spelling and grammar errors in emails and social media updates.  Mistakes in emails are particularly frustrating because there is an editing feature to correct for errors.  Because the nature of Twitter requires countless updates, the ability for drafts seems irrelevant.  So why do we revise emails and not Twitter updates? Is it due to the differing audiences or the differing mediums?  Although the two mediums have different purposes the content generated is still documented in cyberspace.  Maybe it is due to the fact that we know more about the consequences of poorly written emails and less about social media.  Do we need an edit function on social media before we can post?  And is it a good thing that we are so dependent on these edit functions rather than catching these errors ourselves?  Even I used Microsoft Word to draft my post before entering it into Blogger because Spell Check is easier to use. 

Why aren’t people utilizing imagined interactions for social media posts more frequently? It could be due to the fact that there isn’t one receiver but many.  Because emails have a direct receiver(s), we take more time in composing our thoughts.  Social media has a different type of feedback reducing our concern for grammar and spelling.

I wonder how this will change as technology develops.  Maybe Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook will generate an edit feature.  Only time will tell.