Have you ever chatted in a public chat forum?
I don't mean where you chat with a friend or family member using an instant messaging utility, like MSN, AIM, ICQ, etc., but where you go to a web site of interest, find that they have chat available, log in and strike up a conversation with a roomful of strangers?
It's a very popular past-time on the web.
I do it, all the time. However, I'm not so sure it's All That.
Where some folks like the anonymity of it, I find the lack of secondary-channel feedback (aka non-verbal feedback) distressing.
I like to look at the folks I'm talking with. I like to see when they furrow their brows, scratch their heads, cross their arms in frustration or see the gleam in their eyes when they "get it." I like all that stuff. Online, when you're chatting (or emailing and IM-ing, for that matter), you don't get that feedback.
From where I sit, I much prefer eyeball-to-eyeball chatting. There's so much that gets sent on those secondary channels that's missing in a chat room.
Call me old-fashioned. ;-)
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