Manuscript prepared for the

John Pinkerton Journeyman Award 2016

to address the question
Are social skills suffering with faceless
communication; do we assume too much, that the
recipient understands what we actually mean?

Author: Jacob Jones

Mentor: Paul D Jagger

word count: 3271

Are social skills suffering with faceless communication;

do we assume too much, that the recipient understands
what we actually mean?
Jacob Jones1
Faceless communication in its current form (instant, electronic, ubiquitous) is providing new
environments to communicate in. With these new environments come new opportunities, but
also new limitations and risks. This paper explores the effect of the increase in faceless
communication upon social skills. After investigating the history and present state of faceless
communication, this paper reviews the impact this communication is having upon social skills,
including empathy and our face-to-face communication, with supporting evidence. This paper
concludes that with ever-blurring boundaries between forms of communication, both faceless
and face-to-face, we must utilize new technologies and communication platforms to enhance our
face-to-face communication rather than to replace it.

What is faceless communication?

Its become commonplace to communicate instantly with people we cannot see or hear. We
turn to faceless communication so readily because of its accessibility. Since going mobile
with Blackberry at the turn of the millennium, and iPhones and Androids following shortly
after, faceless communication has become a primary mode of communication. We move
seamlessly between platforms in a single interaction, from Facebook to Facebook Chat to
WhatsApp to Snapchat to Email. Our communication no longer centres around our face-toface interactions with a little support from snail mail, telegrams, and (in special cases)
Morse. Now, our communications are fragmented across platforms.
1.1 Fragmented Communication
The fragmented nature of our communication is both the primary risk and opportunity as
our communication moves from face-to-face to faceless and back again.
One of Fjords trends for 2015, Mind the Gap, also suggests our experiences are becoming
more fragmented. There are more digital channels year on year. 2015 saw the launch of the
Apple Watch. This year sees the launch of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset. GSMA
Intelligence, an oft-cited source of mobile operator data and analytics, puts the current
number of mobile connections globally at over 7.7 billion.2 Our communication is truly
multi-channel.

UX Designer and Digital Analyst at Accenture Digital, 30 Fenchurch St., London EC3M 3BD, and Journeyman
at The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, 39a Bartholomew Close, London EC1A 7JN.
2 GSMA is cited by the Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/there-areofficially-more-mobile-devices-than-people-in-the-world-9780518.html and consulted by over 800 mobile
networks https://gsmaintelligence.com/about/
1

The next step in the digital experience is the omni-channel experience. Omni-channel differs
from multi-channel in that it is conducted in unison across all channels. An omni-channel
experience is essentially a single experience tapped into from multiple devices and from
multiple platforms, rather than multiple experiences stitched together.3 Omni-channel is
seamless. Human contact is often perceived to be a break in the user experience. Although
this perception is being challenged by companies such as Amazon with their Mayday button
and studies that suggest >80% of consumers prefer communicating directly with humans
than using digital channels (Accenture Strategy 2015 Global Consumer Pulse Survey
). Still, the traditional requirement to call a helpline or go into a store is increasingly being
shortcut, companies instead preferring to retain a seamless experience by employing a live
chat pop-up and delivering goods direct to your door with unprecedented quickness.456
Even as Fjord hails omni-channel as the next big thing, they highlight the risks: the omnichannel approach runs the risk of ditching humans for automated touchpoints (Fjord Trend
Report 2015). The risk of our meaning being lost in translation is much greater when the
recipient of that communication is not even human.

The history of faceless communication

The modern, that is electronic, history of faceless communication dates back to the 1960s
with MITs multi-user operating system (CTSS) and Unix based notification service
(Zephyr). Shortly after came many-to-many faceless communication, or social networking,
in the form of Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In essence, these were early internet forums but
had provenance (or at least historical analogue) centuries earlier in the Roman acta diurnal
and the Enlightenment era Republic of Letters.7
2.1 The Now of Faceless Communication
If faceless communication is not a new phenomenon, why now, in the 21st century is so
much fuss being kicked up about the potential threat of it? And fuss is being kicked up. In
2012, St Martins Press published Larry Rosens ominously titled iDisorder. In the book, Dr.
Rosen explores a number of his hypotheses on topics such as Why are we all acting crazy?
and Is technology making us all appear schizo?. In 2014, Robert Weiss and Jennifer P.
Schneiders critique of digital communication Closer Together, Further Apart: The Effect of
Technology and the Internet on Parenting, Work, and Relationships received mixed reviews from
readers and critiques alike.89 Then there was Alison Grahams Tedx talk in November of

The device is the specific physical thing (computer, phone, headset) creating the experience; the channel is the
high-level communication channel through which the experience is being conveyed (television, mobile, print);
the platform is the specific instance of software of the experience (Facebook, Twitter, Angry Birds, WhatsApp).
4 For an example of a live-chat pop-up, see Kindle Mayday.
5 For an example of app-based rapid delivery, see Prime Now.
6 Yes, Amazon disrupts the market like few other companies.
7 See, Popova 2011; 2013. The acta dirunal was a state gazette posted in the Roman forum. The Republic of Letters
was a 6,000 strong social network of philosophers and writers, the thought leaders of the European
Enlightenment.
8 Publishers Weeklys review of the book closed with, Younger readers may rejoice [] older readers may yearn
for more substance (http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-9850633-3-7).
3

2014 titled How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial, which provided anecdotal evidence of
the negative impact of social media upon our ability to interact on a human level. The take
away from Grahams talk, projected onto a twenty-foot screen behind her, was look up.
It is true. Children are using digital technology more than ever before. In a 2010 study, the
Kaiser Family Foundation found that these digital natives reported >10hrs worth of digital
media usage a day (treating simultaneous media use as distinct activities) (Pea, Nass, et al.
2012, p. 327).1011 This is up from 8hr 33 in 2004 and 7hr 29 in 1999 in the same sample size.
Amanda Lenharts 2012 study of teenage texting habits found that 12-17 year olds were
sending a median average of 60 SMS messages a day in 2011. I can only assume the
equivalent number of WhatsApp messages is far great in 2016, considering the fewer
limitations of WhatsApp as a messaging platform (to begin with, there is: no character limit;
unlimited messages; image, video, and audio transfer). 63% of teens in Lenharts 2012 study
texted every day. This percentage is greater than all other forms of daily communication used
by the teens in the study.12
Clearly, faceless communication is now less a distinct mode of communication and more a
central part of how we communicate. We are able to use faceless communication in social
environments traditionally reserved for face-to-face communication. For example, it is not
uncommon to see groups at dinner using their phones to post on Facebook and Twitter, or
communicate with other friends, who are not at the meal.13 The boundaries of where faceless
communication ends and face-to-face communication begins began to blur years ago with
the advent of mobile, and those boundaries are becoming less and less distinct today.
Imagine this, wearing an augmented reality headset (Google Glass or Microsoft HoloLens),
talking to Jimmy face-to-face while Daryl is projected onto your glasses via Skype. At that
point, is that even faceless communication? This is a real use case. You can go out and get a
Google Glass and do exactly that (assuming you have two friends named Jimmy and Daryl).

3.

Are social skills suffering with faceless communication?

I have illustrated the increased usage of faceless communication in earlier chapters. In order
to discuss whether or not social skills are suffering as a consequence of this increase in
faceless communication, we first need to establish what social skills are.

11 users have reviewed the book on Goodreads.com, with a mean average rating of 3.4/5.
Digital Native: a term for individuals who have grown up on digital media, including social media, computer
games, mobile apps, and instant messaging. This is as opposed to Digital Immigrants who had already reached
maturity before digital media entered widespread usage.
11 Digital Media here refers to TV, Music/Audio, Computer, Video Games, Print, and Movies, but does not
include mobile phone SMS or calls.
12 Mobile phone calls were made daily by 39% of teens. Face-to-face socialising outside of school was undertaken
by 35%...
13 Alison Grahams Tedx talk refers to this exact phenomenon at 2:10 of the video.
9

10

3.1 What are social skills?

A quick Google search defines a social skill as any skill facilitating interaction and
communication with others (Google search). While Willard Hartup suggests having friends
is a proxy for being socially skilled (1996, p. 2). Social media, or more properly Social
Computing provides myriad opportunities for interaction among people. Ones contacts on
Facebook are named friends. And it is now possible to enter a discussion on almost any
topic, no matter how niche, within seconds on the countless internet forums14. Its easier to
connect than ever before.
The obvious rebuttal to this assertion is that there are differences between communication
and connection. Communication is the transmission of information. Empathy is the
understanding of the inception of that information in the mind of the individual who
transmitted it and the consequent recreation of that point of inception in the mind of the
recipient. In other words, it is the ability to imagine you are the other person. Empathy
induces the sense of connection. But McKenna et al. suggest faceless communication
between anonymous individuals (two individuals who did not previously know each other
in the real world) increases the opportunity for intimate disclosure, which in turn may help
to develop deep empathy, and therefore connection, between participants.

The Problem

The flaw with the argument that faceless communication enables intimate disclosure, which
in turn enables a connection, is that the supposed connection could be wrongly assumed.
Faceless communication certainly provides an environment for intimate disclosure. Yet it
also provides an environment in which participants can wrongly assume they have
developed an empathic connection, because the absence of visual cues (body language,
facial expression, even the environment within which the person is present) and the absence
of audio (tone, register, cadence) substantially reduces the amount of usable information
available to participants that would otherwise inform their empathic connection and the
accuracy thereof.
The problem with faceless communication is not that it distracts us from the present. Any
mobile media can distract us from our surroundings. It could be a YouTube video or a
computer game. The problem with faceless communication arises when the habits we
develop from it are carried over into our face-to-face communication.
A strange manifestation of this phenomenon, of digital habits presenting themselves in our
face-to-face communications, is seen in Alt-Lit. Short for Alternative Literature, Alt-Lit is the
genre of a subset of millennials who live life at a distance, behind a screen. Alt-Lit is
published ad-hoc on internet forums. Alt-Lit writers write about Twitter arguments,
Facebook friends, whos Tumblr is coolest. Alt-Lit is from the internet, by the internet, for

Internet forums appear to be losing traffic with users turning to social networking sites such as Facebook,
Twitter, and Medium instead. Evidence of the decreasing use of internet forums is the decreasing search traffic
for the term forum on Google over the past five years. See fig. 1 in the appendix of this paper.
14

the internet. The human relationships in Alt-Lit are often perfect crystallisations of the
entropy of faceless communication habits into our face-to-face realities.
4.1 The Problem in Action: Alt-Lit
Theres an Alt-Lit novelist and poet called Tao Lin. Following the release of Lins latest novel
in 2013, Taipei, Bret Easton Ellisthe author of American Psychocalled Lin the most
exciting prose stylist of his generation (Twitter).15
A central theme in Taipei (as well as in Lins earlier work: Richard Yates and Shoplifting from
American Apparel) is communication in the digital age. This theme is explored by Lin in his
observations of contemporary romantic relationships in documentary detail. As readers, we
watch Lins lovers as they communicate across platforms, and how their communication on
one platform informs, shapes, constructs/destructs their communication on other platforms.
For example: In Lins 2010 novel Richard Yates, Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning are
in a relationship. The primary platforms for communication in this fictional relationship are
Gmail chat, email, and face-to-face. As Dakotas mother disapproves of her relationship with
Haley, much of the couples communication takes place remotely. It is faceless by necessity.
Consequently, the character of their communication is predicated upon the functionality and
limitations of the platforms of their communication. The limitations of Gmail chat include:
an inability to see the face of the fellow communicant in real time; an inability to hear the
communicant in real time. The inability to see or hear ones fellow communicant in real time
(or at all) forces the entirety of meaning onto the narrow space of the words themselves. One
is without non-verbal cues, tonality, even the significance of a pause.
In the case of Haley and Dakota, the lack of non-verbal cues and voice tonality in their
Gmail chat exchanges forces them to develop a mode of communication that is not reliant on
either of these things. This mode (or character) of communication is characterised by short,
inexpressive sentences, and a limited vocabulary, presumably to avoid semantic
ambiguity.16
The expressionless character of communication continues into all other platforms of
communication used by the couple, including their face-to-face communication. The extract
below is an example of expressionless face-to-face communication in Richard Yates.
What did it say? said Dakota Fanning looking ahead.
It just said you looked at Matt Dixons Myspace page and clothes and pictures of yourself.
Oh, said Dakota Fanning and was quiet for about ten seconds.
Did you do anything else today that you didnt say? she said.

I would also like to notebecause it is both funny and pertinentElliss tweet concluded with the phrase,
which doesnt mean that Taipei isnt a boring novel. The tweet was included on the cover of the Vintage first
edition of Taipei (2013). The second half of Elliss tweet however, was omitted. The tweet can be seen here:
https://twitter.com/breteastonellis/status/308502148226883584
16 See, Tao Lin, Richard Yates, p.158.
15

No, said Haley Joel Osment with a very neutral facial expression. Except like answering
emails and reading blogs. []
It said you looked up vomit inducers, he said walking across her front yard.
Why did you look up vomit inducers? he said at her front door.
I dont know, said Dakota Fanning going into her house. I was just curious. I wasnt
going to actually get one or anything.
Tao Lin, Richard Yates, p.153
Here, Haley Joel Osment speaks with a very neutral facial expression, and when he speaks,
no speech modifiers are used, he simply says. The lack of facial expression, the lack of
voice tonality, these are elements of expressionless communication, which itself is a byproduct of the proliferation of faceless communication in the digital age. Tao Lin, in his
novels, is representing the communication characteristics of a generation to whom faceless
communication platforms are a predominant mode of communication.

The Evidence

Human beings quickly adapt to master any environment within which they exist, in fact
they dont just master it they become the masters of it. This is true in the physical world as
much as it is in the virtual world.
When there is a new platform for communication, we adjust our behaviour to suit the
functionality and limitations of that platform in order to more effectively and more
efficiently communicate meaning. For example, early mobile phones with SMS messaging
required a number of key presses to type a single letter. In addition, there was a character
limit per SMS. Consequently, individuals began shortening words and employing acronyms
in their SMS communication: BRB, LOL, CU, cnt, wnt. This adaptation has become an entire
language, SMS language (also referred to as text speak and textese). The lack of visual
context has elicited the invention of face symbols, now commonly called emoticons.
Emoticons attempt to provide additional emotional context to the text.
The invention of SMS language is not an isolated example. Similar instances of adaptation
have occurred throughout history: the development of complex sign languages in deaf
communities; the rapid development of creole languages on plantations; the hybrid
languages of immigrant communities (Pinker 2003, p. 23). In his study of language
adaptation, Steven Pinker states, If children are thrown together without a pre-existing
language that can be culturally transmitted to them, they will develop one of their own
(2003, p. 26).
Clearly, whatever the limitations of a given structure, whether language based or physical
(see the adaptation of lungs in individuals living at high altitude (Agostoni et al.)), a
characteristicand great strengthof human beings is adaptability.17 But theres a caveat:
Our adaptability can create difficulties when the rules, limitations, and functionalities of the

17

See, Massey, Nathanael. Humans may be the most adaptive species. Scientific American. 25 September, 2015.
Web. 10 April 2016.

structures we are adjusting to are constantly changing. And in the information age,
structures are changing more rapidly than ever before.
5.1 Adapting across boundaries
In 2008, Beverly Plester, Clare Wood, and Victoria Bell studied the impact of the acquisition
and usage of SMS language by 11-12 year-old children on their wider language skills and
intelligence. The study found that those children who used SMS messaging more often (>3
times per day) scored significantly lower on verbal reasoning tests than those who texted
less often (<3 times per day). Conversely, those students who were most competent at
translating standard English into SMS language also typically scored higher on Standard
English language attainment measures (Plester et al. 2008, p. 143).
The problem seems to arise when the boundaries between channels blur. For example, when
Haley is unable to employ the full range of face-to-face communication elements, and when
the children in Plester, Wood, and Bells study carry their text speak into standard English.
Evident in both these cases is the limitations of one platform being carried into (and
therefore, negatively impacting) a different platform on which those limitations should not
exist.
A common error seen in translating from SMS language to standard English was some of the
SMS language (abbreviated words/neologisms such as cnt, NE1, CU) being left untranslated
(Plester et al. 2008, p. 139). Once again we see that though the reasons for the adaptation
(SMS character limit, effort of typing) are no longer present, the adaptation itself
(abbreviations) remains. The result of this would be the detached, expressionless face-to-face
communication seen in Tao Lins novel. But are we seeing this, in real life? Apart from a few
highly specific studies, literary and filmic examples, and a lot of theory, there appears to be
little real evidence that we are turning into a gene pool of zombies with iDisorder.18
5.2 Do we assume too much?
There is, however, a single study in which the ability of children to read emotional
nonverbal cues was tested before and after five days of screen abstinence. This study,
conducted by Yalda T. Uhls et al. found that the childrens empathic skill increased
following the five days of screen abstinence (when compared to a control group) (Yalda T.
Uhls et al. 2014, p.391). But this doesnt indicate empathy is not present when these same
children are using faceless forms of communication, only that their face-to-face
communication skills are mildly-to-moderately improved by focusing on that as the sole
mode of communication. A similar trend would be seen if a sample of children were forced
to jog everywhere, rather than catching the bus: The old adage practise makes perfect
suggests those jogging children, after five days, would be better at jogging.
Perhaps, a further problem with faceless communication is that we cannot help but assume
too much. If we are communicating with a friend, and that friend sends a J emoticon, we
must assume the friend sending the J is happy. Similarly, in face-to-face communication, if

18

A term coined by Dr. Larry Rosen in the title of his exploration of the threat of technology, iDisorder.

the person we are communicating with seems authentically happy (smiling, energetic,
employing positive language) we assume the individual is happy unless there is additional
context to suggest that individual is not happy (they are in the midst of a bereavement, for
example, but they are putting on a brave face). The difference between these examples of
faceless and face-to-face communication is that in the former the emotional/meaning cues
are so limited that they are easy to misinterpret and of course also easy to fake.

Conclusion

Oculus headsets have already begun to ship. Sony VR headsets are expected in October.
2016 is the year of virtual reality. Developer versions of Google Glass 2 and Microsoft
Hololens begin shipping later this year and consumer versions are set to follow next year.
2017 will be the year of augmented reality. Never before has there been so much potential
for rethinking how we communicate. But these new devices blur the boundaries between
real, human interactions, and digital experiences. The risk is that we begin to replace our
face-to-face interactions with ever increasing faceless communication, because it is more
readily available, it requires less effort.
Companies that produce the hardware and software for these devicesand companies
running communication platforms, such as WhatsAppshould foreground enhancing our
experience of reality (face-to-face communication) rather than replacing it.
I would highlight the following opportunities:

More face-to-face customer service: Beam a customer support representative in your

customers living rooms using augmented reality.
Close the gap between the initial browsing experience and the end product: Use
virtual reality to enable customers to experience holiday destinations, hotels, hospital
rooms, and cars.
Improve the services that matter (its not just about making money): Harness the
power of digital communication to teach children in developing countries, have a
second pair of eyes in a life-saving operation, or enable transnational and
transcultural knowledge sharing.

New forms of communication should strive to bring us closer together rather than further
apart.

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