How do you make up for the lack of body-language when chatting?

[Cupid]

I speak my heart. I think people know right where I come from and I usually use a few emotions from time to time.

 

[Zechnophobe]

The question, then, is how do you usually make up for the lack of body-language when writing, and why that way in particular? Do you keep to the simple beauty of smilies? Are you a fellow user of stars (for it is always stars *cough* sorry)? Do you have another clever way of dealing with it, or do you find that is it not needed in the first place?

Good use of punctuation will almost always convey the meaning and tone of something. Though, by 'good' I don't actually mean 'proper' in the standard pre-internet way. Punctuation can act a bit LIKE body language. See these past sentences? You can feel the accents on the single quoted words, as well as the all caps one... you can even use an ellipse to show a pause in thought or that, perhaps, you are thinking.

I. Love. Punctuation. It can even make halting phrases work out. And, uh, if you really want to show style, don't be afraid to use filler words. Hmm, how can I explain this? The 'ums' and 'uhs' that we use during *actual* communication also give hints to the listener that we are, I guess, thinking or reevaluating our words. So, you can use these same types of things in language that is read. For instance 'so' or 'uh' or 'hmm'.

I know you might be thinking 'wtf', but even acronyms can help. Shortening of a spoken phrase into three letters make it seem like it is said 'faster' than normal. It condenses a more complex message into a shorter bite of discussion, giving you more time to gtfo.(And if you have to splice in a new thought to an existing one, why not try parenthesis?)

All in all, there are a surprising number of ways to get past the body language problem. I think in some cases, communication can be better via just text.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Mostly pictures, if I'm feeling lazy or don't think pictures can express it correctly, I use bold or italics.

 

[jamradar]

Emoticons or you could use the little stars **

But there is another way...

Spoiler

But dont worry its not body language thats tough to convey, its tone of voice. You cant express tone of voice without telling people what tone of voice you are talking in.

 

[Blue_vision]

I usually try to convey what I'm thinking by typing out words differently or using punctuation. I love to talk face to face much, much better, but I don't have much of a problem with talking electronically at all. Videochat is nice, but I find regular phones to be the worst of both worlds.

 

[Hippobatman]

I just try to make it blatantly obvious what I'm supposed to convey.

But when I feel cheeky I write the text in italics, bold, [sub]sub[/sub] or strike through it.

I don't usually use smileys here. It feels... A bit tacky.

 

[SimuLord]

Being possessed of a delicious autism spectrum disorder, I'm already nigh-on useless at reading nonverbal cues in communication unless they're blatantly obvious, so the written word suits me just fine and I find it far easier to communicate through this medium (though far less satisfying for want of actual human contact---unlike most ASD types I thrive on contact with people and find it makes communication easier to understand.)

 

[Julianking93]

Though it is very cliche, I use emoticons to convey what infliction I want the sentence I'm writing to have.

Usually works out fairly well for me, so I keep doing it.

 

[Shraggler]

Strange thread. I usually never think of body language when composing a message, mostly because I think of it as written.

It is, however, difficult to enunciate certain words or syllables in online conversation (especially instant messaging) in order to get the direct meaning across. This has fucked me over multiple times.