A NEW KIND OF RELATIONSHIP

In the course of human history, the written word emerged as a powerful technique for communicating across distances. In addition to books and other types of manuscripts, personal letter writing between individuals dates back to antiquity. Publishing houses and modern postal systems expedited text communication, but the advent of the Internet raised the game to a whole new level. Not only did cyberspace enable more people to communicate using text quickly, efficiently, and across time and space, it also led to unique styles of talking among individuals and groups. Some researchers refer to it as text speak or computer-mediated communication, while I prefer the term text talk because it implies both an individual's attempt to communicate as well as conversation among people. More so than ever before in human history, we have entered a prolific age of text-driven relationships, even though we now take it for granted. For these reasons, I include text in its own category as one of the eight dimensions of cyberpsychology architecture, and have devoted this chapter to it.