HEY!!! long time gone.

Who knew that youthnoise would be an integral part of a college girls resources.

I'm working on a paper for my oral comm class about how youthnoise serves as a form of nontraditional, nonverbal, communication. So you may ask why you care.

This is what you all could do for me, FIVE minutes of your time to help a poor college student and a good friend of the old timers.

How does differ or serve the same purpose from your day to day communication. Such as discussions with friends, television, texting, IM. Anything.

Also how has youthnoise impacted your life, do you feel that your life has changed because you're a member.

Thanks!!!

Fina said it best honestly we're free to express ourselves as ourselves and don't have to hide behind the various social masks we were normally. It's wonderful as a form of debate and discussion because we don't have to respond at once, we can take the time to think things through, run over to google and get source information and all sorts of wonderful debate techniques that one cannot do in real life unless one carries a library on their person.

Like fina YN has had a massive impact on my life aiding in morphing me from the ultra-conservative I was to the libertarian I am today. It's introduced to me some wonderful people I would not have met otherwise, people I am proud to list as dear friends. Of course it also brought my best friend and I together and what greater impact on a life can there be then that?

apparently no one but fina is willing to help me...

*tear*

thank you fina, that is perfect!!! You're my favorite yn member!!!

For me, the biggest difference between YN and other forms of communication is the opportunity I have to think out what I say. In real life discussions that opportunity is greatly reduced, and even in IMs, where a more-or-less immediate response is required, it suffers. On YN I get to pick only the subjects I'd like to discuss, and then I get unlimited time to say what I want to say. Not only do I come off looking more intelligent and polished, I often end up taking the time to learn things that I would overlook in the heat of a discussion on the same topic in another medium. Of course, none of this is unique to YN; it applies to all forums and message boards.

Another biggie is the lack of subtle social restraints on YN. Though I've made friends here, I very rarely -- if ever -- keep my mouth shut (or rather, my fingers off the keyboard) simply for the sake of keeping the peace. The atmosphere is perfect for expressing yourself: you have almost no emotional investment in how people see your views, so you're more likely to express them, and the friends you do end up making are usually the people who respect you for expressing your views and want you to continue doing it.

Probably the biggest drawback -- and this is really true throughout the entire Internet -- is that the anonymity can lead to abuse. Realizing you can say most anything with no harsh consequences to yourself is great, unless you happen to be an asshole.

YN has had a pretty big impact on my life. I'm not on YN anywhere near every day anymore, but rarely more than a couple days pass where I go without talking to someone I met on it. Forums are only as cool as the people on them, and YN has had some pretty cool people over the years.

I hope this at least partially answers your question, TS. I'd be lying if I said I completely understood it.

*verbal communication

Youthnoise as a form of nontraditional verbal communication.