Texting versus Talking face to face...what gets lost in translation

        I know I usually blog about upcoming networking sites but as I have yet to hear from pinwheel to review their site I decide I would discuss the many pros and cons of texting versus talking to someone face to face. This question has been bugging me because I just recently got texting and I am very new to this world. I don't use it all the time but I do use it more than I thought I would. It also had me wondering if texting any better or faster than talking to someone in person. I mean you miss those verbal and nonverbal cues of a person to discover if they are mad, sad, angry, or actually like you in the first place. Every action has to be given reassurance that you in turn are not acting like a complete moron. Well, it feels like that for me anyway, I worry that whatever I will text will come out in moron.
     I think it is for this reason that I still seem to prefer talking to someone face to face since it is easier to determine a person's perspective from talking with him/her. I think due to the advent of social networking sites and texting that relationships with people have become cold and distant, and given that things seem to be falling apart in the US economically and otherwise, having people to connect with and get along with is always a good thing. However, to play devils advocate their is one person I text where this person cheers me up and gets a good laugh out of me, when I have had a particularly crappy day, so I guess texting can bring people together, sort of... These are just my thoughts on pondering versus talking to someone face to face, what are your thoughts readers?

Anybeat review...

My overall experience with anybeat is that it is very relaxed can talk about what they want when they want. This site has even made it so that people can create groups to discuss topics of interest to them. This is the impression I received when people have commented about this social networking site when comparing it to facebook. However, it is the relaxed perspective of this site that worries me as when I was on it I had a random user start chatting with me, when I knew nothing about him/her. But, this might also be a good thing as people are able to be open and maybe speak about what they might not be able to talk about facebook because parents or friends are on there and they don’t want to offend anyone. Actually this is one of the pitfalls of Facebook for me personally, never feeling comfortable to say what you actually think or feel for fear of offending someone.

            The pros of anybeat are that one is comfortable to be oneself and to say what one thinks without offending others. Also their website is very relaxed and comfortable about the various topics about people want to talk about. I perused topics from people celebrating the death of Kim John Ill and turning watching pride and prejudice into a drinking game. These are not likely things would see all the time on facebook, which I guess is kind of the point. Also another positive or negative depending on how you think about it, is that you can link your anybeat account to facebook.  Furthermore, as a user you can be as honest about your identity as you would like, people could know your real name, or you can come up with your user name, your identity in this networking site is whatever you want it to be. But, when creating your profile you get credibility points so maybe this is the company signaling to its users that they should be using real information about themselves on this site.

            However, it is this laissez faire attitude that could become a problem for anybeat because it never knows if their viewers are telling the truth about themselves… I think based off what I have observed from this site is that it is for people that are well tired of facebook and having to censor their personal opinions for the good of the group. Also it is for those who want to get to know others outside the facebook realm or at the very least in a more comfortable online environment. Also, this website has recently gone public so hopefully it will be able to compete with more of the major networking sites such as foursquare and the omnipresent facebook.