In assessing the impact of comments and, more generally, of digital conversation, almost all are concerned to investigate the adjective: the appearance, the digitality. This often happens because we oppose a “virtual” online dialogue against a “real” dialogue when bodies are present in the same space. There are excellent reasons to believe that this dualism is ineffective, and I completely agree with them. But in particular, I find much more interesting that most of our communication has become written instead of spoken: and the fact that this takes place on digital platforms rather than analogue ones is actually secondary.
(17/10/14)