Does Avatar-Based Communication Cause You More Anxiety, Than Connection? For Comfort, Go To Landsend

We know the power of avatar-based interaction, transcending social and geographic boundaries, but Landsend Korobase has a thoughtful post on the flip side: Anxiety and paranoia that's also evoked by the gaps between intention, communication, and technology. "The number of times I’ve had perfectly calm rational people ask me if I had a problem with them just because I took a few minutes to reply to an IM or because I teleported away when they arrived somewhere," she writes, "is more than I can count... because they lacked other cues I’d normally provide in the real world -– like a smile or eye contact to quickly let them know that we were all good." This is very true. Then again, the same observation pretty much applies to all Internet-mediated communication. (When you send a long passionate email to someone that goes unanswered several days, do you first assume it was Spam-filtered -- or that you're being snubbed?) Then yet again, the sense of being embodied in a shared world makes us want to apply our everyday social cues, even in situations where they don't actually always fit. Ms. Korobase lucidly reminds us why. Image credit: Ms. Korobase's Flickr stream. Do yourself a favor, see the image in full. Hat tip: Ms. Stacia Villota.