Response Space

One of the comforts of online interaction is the very evident asynchronicity and the quietness in which one communicates with the other: a pip-pip-pip of a keyboard and the inoffensive doorbell when a message comes in; the liberty to respond as quickly or slowly (or not-at-ally) as one wishes; the fact that interaction is edited. This all makes politeness more possible.

Even though the face to face is absolutely present, it still contains, (lest we forget) the response space. Stephen Covey discusses this in his Seven Habits book/paradigm: "Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose" (70).

So it would be easier, to the degree that online experiences allow more response space, if the personal experience could be more like an online experience. How would that happen, and how would it feel?

Ultimately, everything civil has much time involved--even the thing that happens in a moment and in the moment goes much better if it has been prepared for eternities before.