The value of not getting to the point (2015)

A writer reflects on a sudden insight about everyday conversation: the rituals of shared food, drink and small talk exist to spare participants from having to be continuously substantive. He recounts a call with his college-freshman daughter who asked to “talk,” then wanted to linger on trivial topics for a long warmup before revealing the real issue about half an hour in. That experience upended his get-to-the-point habit and made him see how language’s imprecision, the incoherence of our own rationalizations, social penalties for misspeaking, and the vulnerability of speaking all make direct disclosure difficult. Casual chit-chat, pauses and ritualized settings provide the trust and cushioning people need to approach sensitive subjects.

He uses that insight to critique online platforms, especially Twitter’s 140-character constraint, for truncating the conversational scaffolding that real-life interaction supplies; without warmup rituals, online speech triggers more misunderstanding, outrage and clumsy policing of tone. He suggests much of online conflict stems from cultural practices that haven’t evolved for text-mediated spaces and notes many people remain clueless about online norms. Intending to learn explicitly what others intuit, he plans to state observations that may seem obvious to some, accepting the risk of annoying those already attuned to these social dynamics.