There are no accidents, but sometimes a cigar is a cigar.

I’m on a mailing list that recently has had some communications problems. People have written emails to test if the list is working and have responded in various ways. Others have talked about their feelings when messages are not responded to. I wrote an email to the list sharing some of my reactions to the discussions there and this is a version of that message adopted for my blog.

I've been fascinated by some of the discussions on the list over the past few days and thought I would add another one of my typical, out of left field, responses.

When it comes to text based computer mediated communications, people often comment about the disadvantages that a lack of non-verbal cues presents. On the other hand, some argue that having just text makes it a much richer environment for exploring projections. I've been fascinated by this viewpoint and always enjoy hearing discussions about this. Yet it struck me this week, that there may be projections not only on the words, but on the form of communications itself.

This line of thought started as I wondered why we have these various bursts of "Test" messages. What are they really all about? Are they reflecting some sort of need to stay connected in this world that seems increasingly connected via online communications? Years ago, I would not have expected to hear from people in Austria and Australia. If by some chance, I had established a connection like that, I suspect that a delay in communications of a few days would be less likely to be noticed. Before the days of air mail, a letter would take many days to make it half way around the world. A delay of a few days would be unlikely to be noticed, and I would also suspect that I would have been more likely to expect messages to get lost in transit. I probably wouldn't have sent a letter back saying "test". Now, if we don't hear something we quickly suspect something is amiss and often quickly become frustrated.

I've also found, especially in my younger years, that if someone did not respond to me, I quickly assumed it was because of some flaw of my own. People didn't respond because they didn't like me. Yes, I struggled a lot with my own insecurity when I was younger, and perhaps it comes back to haunt me today. When I send an email to the various mailing list and get no response, I am still perhaps more likely to assume it is because I said something stupid, than to assume it is because there are problems with the mailing list servers, or perhaps even, that it is because other people on the list are really busy with other things. Yes, I want my words to be more important than server problems or other important things going on in my friends’ lives. The same applies to my reactions to no comments on my blog.

As a technologist, I have made mistakes adjusting settings on servers and made it difficult for people to get their messages through. Perhaps these were accidents. Perhaps they were the result of me being too tired, distracted or inattentive to make the correct serve configuration adjustments. Yet at the same time, to the person wondering why they haven't gotten a response to their emails, it may be because of mistakes by me or other technologists and not a reflection of some character flaw of the person sending or receiving the email. The undelivered email might not be an accident, but it might not be a cigar either.

When technology doesn't do what we think it should do, it might not really be telling us anything interesting. However, or responses to problems with technology may be very rich material to explore to learn a little bit about ourselves.

Thoughts?