public and private speech

"We believe that talking on a mobile phone in a public place is in part a matter of conflict of social spaces in which people assume different faces. ... This changing act brings to the fore that faces are publicly assumed, which then gives rise to the feeling that the new face and perhaps even the old face are false" (28).

As we build our private, isolated space, our words become less personalized, emphasizing what should be said instead of, perhaps, what we want to say. We think of security issues as coming from a foreign hacker, but documents and conversations can be easily observed by our friends, as they forward e-mails or copy and paste text from one conversation box to another. My style changes dramatically if someone glances over my shoulder. I may cease to write at all until I am alone. I walk away to make a quick phone call, for quick it must be; nobody can be permitted to overhear my mundane, "So how was your day?"

Lizzi brings up the interesting issue of cowardice or courage when it comes to electronic messaging. Is it more noble of us to labor over our responses, or do we fear confrontation? (I know that I am of the latter category.) Our technologies through the ages, though meant to "bridge the gaps," have, to a degree, aided us in avoiding direct contact when necessary: letters, the telephone, answering machines, voicemail, e-mail, IM, text messaging. Yet paradoxically, our private space is accessible by nearly all we know. It appears that though we may postpone our responses, we may never say precisely what it is that we mean.