From Simeon Yates

Every time I send an e-mail, make a phone call or talk to a colleague I lie – then again we all do. That is if we mean by ‘lying’ that we make statements, assert facts that are not ‘true’ or in fact fail to state things. It is a well-established feature of all interaction that we avoid having to make, or causing others to have to make, ‘accounts’ – see the Conversation Analytic and Discursive Psychological work on ‘accounts’ – they tend to mark out points of ‘trouble’ in on-going interaction and we tend to avoid this for the sake of interactional expediency – except for when we don't….

I could make an account of why I am doing this on the night before the workshop that lists – work pressures, having just been on leave, family issues etc. But as no one nor the structure of the interaction on the blog required me to do so I am not (well I have a bit…). Excessive accounts often lead to problems as they break Grice’s rules and raise issues of Relevance.

It is easier to send the e-mail saying ‘job nearly done’ (even if you are still working furiously away) than send the long explanation of why it is still being done. It is easier to say ‘cant make it tonight busy with work’ in an SMS (even though you are not doing anything) rather than explain the complexities of give and take with a partner that keep your relationship healthy and therefore the need to be at home… I will of course put a positive spin on an issue if I am trying to persuade (even if I may feel down that day, or in truth the issue is pretty dire). I may express annoyance at someone or something as part of a strategy to deal with a problem at work.

In one sense I am keeping secrets (not revealing information) and telling lies (not being fully open) but this is the nature of interaction – without this it would all fall down. The interesting thing for me is the new resources digital media provide for doing this everyday interactional work.

My favourite examples – many of which I have done myself – come from media choices in ongoing interaction. Why an SMS or e-mail rather than a phone call? Why a phone call rather than a meeting. Often this is about limiting the bandwidth, or making the interaction written and formal; in order to prevent the awkward questions, the probing, the chance the ‘face’ might slip, which face-to-face often risks.

In our work on mobile use we have found evidence of complex face management games as well as identity play which rely on the ability to control the information ‘given off’ (as Goffman would say) in an interaction. In the end this is what digital media change. Some, like SMS and e-mail allow us to undertake private interaction in public, others like Facebook risk making our private things public. This is what fascinates me – the cleverness with which we all use the features (affordances?) of the medium to do social and interactional work, and at the same time how this makes me reflect on the social science, communications studies and linguistic theories of interaction.

Simeon Yates...See you all tomorrow.