virtual body language

Have you ever had the experience of chatting or emailing a possible date online who seemed full of potential and find that when you meet for the first time that they are not all they appeared to be when flirting virtually.   Recently I was reading a Makeuseof.com post about How to Read & Interpret Body Language which got me to thinking about how that translates online to our virtual body language.  Online dating & social networks rely to a large degree on virtual body language and this of course is where some issues arise when finding a partner online.

“Get in touch with the way the other person feels. Feelings are 55% body language, 38% tone and 7% words.” Professor Albert Mehrabian

You can test how much you know or don’t know about body language at Bodycom but regardless of how much you are conscious of this piece, it is a strong component when people meet & match.  How does this happen online?  How can we read body language when our bodies are not involved?

“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”  Giambattista Vico

Carol Kinsey Goman posted on a blog

One of the unique concepts I’ve come across is the “limbic response” (named after the limbic brain). The limbic brain generates and interprets facial expressions and handles emotions.  Here’s what scientists have found: A baby, viewing a videotape of the mother’s face becomes distraught; the baby needs to see the mother’s “real” face before it calms down. Eye contact, it seems, is not just important for conveying messages, it is the means by which two limbic systems come into contact and affect each other.  Of course, adult humans have other ways to share emotions (language and body motion) – but still, this research presents an interesting perspective for technology and communication.

However to date I haven’t found any further information to back this up.  Let me know if you know anything further about this.

“Man consists of two parts, his mind and his body, only the body has more fun.” Woody Allen

At 2knowmyself.com they have some good information about body language in How to know if someone is lying to you as per below:

Your subconscious mind controls many of your involuntary functions like that of breathing, sweating, heart-beating….etc. when someone attempts to lie they usually control their facial expressions and tone of voice, but their unconscious mind still controls all other involuntary signals like body language and respiration rate. These unconscious signals are what we will be using to detect if they are lying; if their words are consistent with their unconscious signals then they are saying the truth otherwise, they are lying.

“Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.” Henry Miller

NLP offers some interesting information about eye movements & these are listed in their post have you ever noticed eye movements?:

NLP, eye accessing cues

* upper left ,visual construction (VC) : the person looking into that direction is constructing the image of a visual scene, the person’s eye could go to this direction when asked about the color of his dream car
* upper right , visual remembering (VR) : the person looking into that direction is remembering the image of a visual scene, that’s the direction someone could look to when asked about the color of his car
* middle left, auditory construction (AC) : the person looking into that direction is constructing a sound , that’s the direction the person’s eye could go to when asked a question like “what do you think he will tell you when you meet him tomorrow ?”
* middle Right , auditory remembering (AR) : the person looking into that direction is remembering a sound , that’s the direction the person’s eye could go to when asked about what someone told him yesterday
* lower left Kinesthetic (k) :this is the direction someone’s eye go to when he is accessing his feelings, that’s the direction his eyes could go to when asked somthing like “how did it feel to fail that exam?”
* lower right ,auditory digital (AD) : this is the direction someone’s eye go to when he is talking to himself.

“The language of friendship is not words but meanings.” Henry David Thoreau

So can Emoticons really convey how we feel & our body language when we meet & match?   Wikipedia has an article Improvements in Virtual Body Language – Emoticons just in case you were not up to scratch with what they mean?

Smile
Smile with a wink
:<}) User with mustache, smiling
| Mad
Sad
:’-( Crying
:~ Also crying
) Really happy
Big grin
:-* A kiss
~ A lick
Surprise
Grim
Sticking out your tongue
:-/ Perplexed
=:O Frightened (hair standing on end
=8O Bug-eyed with fright
:-} Embarassed smile
;-^) Tongue in cheek

So what do you think about virtual body language and how can the online dating/social network experience be more successful?  Would love to hear your experiences & ideas please comment below.  Thanks.

I would like to leave you with an hysterical video that is a mime/body language to the song ‘Torn’.  Enjoy…..

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