Why, oh why, do people still write in all-caps on the Internet?

My SO has Aspergers and he types with caps way too much. I constantly tell him it means you are yelling and the reader will more than likely become annoyed with him, but he continues anyway. He thinks it makes it easier to read…. go figure!!

I don’t get too bothered by it, because some people just don’t know. For me, life is too short to be bothered by ‘the little things.’ I don’t get upset over typos or misspellings either. I just try to understand what the person is trying to say. I’ve been told I have the patience of a saint, ha ha!!

No matter how familiar the Internet is, some just never understand the etiquette involved. Some choose to use it as a trolling mechanism. Some people just don’t care. Some people think it HELPS when ONE TALKS with CAPS to HIGHLIGHT WHAT ONE IS SAYING NOW JUST SO YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND.

What really bugs me is people using sarcasm. Folks, you really have to be skilled at words to make sarcasm work without being in person. Most are not that skilled, but try anyway, and it just ruins conversations when someone takes it seriously…

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL

duh

WAIT, PEOPLE STILL DO THAT?!

@scamp: I don’t think life is that short. Even if you are as extremely bothered by all-caps writing as possible (sighing with frustration, ~3 seconds; complaining to your coworker about the idiot that did it, ~15 seconds; posting a fluther thread to ask about it, ~2 minutes; reading responses to the fluther thread, ~10 minutes), it only amounts to about 12 minutes and 18 seconds of your life.

The current world average life expectancy is 66.12 years (that’s including the very low life expectancies in third-world countries, where people don’t even have the internet and couldn’t possibly be concerned with all-caps writing, as well as those who die as infants and also couldn’t possibly be concerned with all-caps writing), and even using this very low-balled life expectancy average, the amount of time spent being bothered by all-caps writing accounts for only 0.0002123578% (exactly) of a lifespan, so I think it is okay to do.

I tend to give people a break. Sometimes people are really intimidated by the computer in the first place. Hy hubby is really smart but he’s 58 years old and has been a contractor all his life. He never had a job where he had to use a typewriter, much less a keyboard. he does pretty good on caps lock) but I realized yesterday that he didn’t know how to get a question mark! It’s not because he’s not smart, he was just never told and was so insecure about it that he was afraid to ask for fear of looking stupid.

@girlofscience: SHORT IS RELATIVE.

SOMETIMES IT’S AN accident.

@girlofscience Please read what I said agan:

I don’t get too bothered by it, because some people just don’t know. For me, life is too short to be bothered by ‘the little things.’ I don’t get upset over typos or misspellings either. I just try to understand what the person is trying to say. I’ve been told I have the patience of a saint, ha ha!!

Notice the emphasis on for me. If you want to be upset about such things, be my guest. I choose to overlook it and not waste any of my time on it, whether 12 seconds or 12 minutes.

edit to add: I wonder how much time you wasted doing the math and looking up lifespan statistics to try and convince me I should be upset about this?

Kanye West would say, he’s not mad, he’s just lazy.

Life is too short spent worrying and bothering about what others do/think. I think that’s a very fair statement. It just so happens scamp used a subset of others in this case to mean people who use caps lock. I’m sure there are other things that bother scamp but that scamp doesn’t spend their life worrying about.

Plus you included sleeping time in your calculations, which doesn’t count since you can’t do anything while asleep. And one could argue that time at work or a job means one can’t worry about these people, so that further changes the number.

Thanks dynamicduo That is so true.

@uber

You beat me to it.

I think we’ve already gone over this but you must be an ex /b/tard.

I remember (way back) when I first started to use email, I used all caps for the same reason given by scamp’s SO. I found it easier to read (cleaner look, too). A good friend quickly filled me in on the SHOUTING analogy, so I stopped. I always assume it’s a person who is new to the internet, and give the benefit of the doubt…unless they are obnoxious about it.

It’s people who DON’T understand the SUBTLE EFFECTIVENESS of BOLD or SERIFS.
It’s people who don’t understand the subtle effectiveness of bold or serifs.

@dynamic duo – re: “And one could argue that time at work or a job means one can’t worry about these people, so that further changes the number.”

That’s the thing. If I were just reading the internet for fun, I could skip past the large blocks of ALLCAPS and I would be just fine with that. However, when I’m at work, part of my job is responding to customer feedback that is left at my employer’s website. Customers just LURVE to write for several paragraphs in ALLCAPS and I have to read it for my job.

If I could just spend my work life “not worried” about that, I’d be golden.

@elchoopanebre duh lol

some people just don’t realize it is hard to read. they are not screaming (all the times); they just don’t realize caps is hard on the eyes. imagine reading text written in “olde english.”

to the writer, it’s cool because he/she thinks it looks different. the tagger or graffiti artist usually goes for olde english because he/she likes it. the same is for capital letters. the writer believes he/she is being paid attention to when they write text that way.

@laureth In all fairness to dynamicduo, you made no mention of reading for work until just now. Your question seemed to be more general in nature. Your tags are: internet, behavior, etiquette, annoyance

Your original question may have been misunderstood.

@scamp: I understand that. I don’t think I was yelling at dynamicduo, just clarifying.

Should I have put something like “workplace reading” as a topic?

Well, if you wanted to talk specifically about this in the workplace it would have helped, but it’s clear now!! I’m glad we got this cleared up, thanks.

No problem. I do what I can.

Perhaps I should have waited until I got home (rather than posting furtively on my lunch break).

On the other hand, I still think the question is valid. And I thank the few people who actually posted reasons why people might still write in ALLCAPS.

I know exactly what you mean! I don’t get my point across very well when I post from work either.

Even with cruise control, you have to steer.

I was assuming you were just talking about the internet in general. Having to deal with all caps during the work hours is horrendous. It’s even worse than dealing with a document written all in Comic Sans, if it’s not a PDF at least I can change the font, but one can’t un-caps lock something… ugh.

@dynamicduo: I hate Comic Sans with a passion. I even have a shirt that says Ban Comic Sans. Whenever I see a presentation in Comic Sans, I immediately think of the science as being less valid.

Ban Comic Sans.

I probably hate it more than you do. I’ve been a designer for a long time, and one of the pitfalls in being a graphic designer is having other bad designs stick out like a sore thumb, and of course our friend Comic Sans is #1 on that list. I always think less of whatever item the text is on. The worst example I’ve seen is it being used on packaging for food items, some local nut company uses it and no matter how cheap the nuts are I’ll never buy them.

@dynamicduo: At my aunt’s company, they instituted that Comic Sans is the font to be used at all times because it is “easiest to read.”

Can you believe that?!?!?

Wow! That’s a good one. While sans-serif fonts are easier to read on screens, it should never be used in any professional setting. Ugh.

“While sans-serif fonts are easier to read on screens, it should never be used in any professional setting. Ugh.”

Plenty of highly professional establishments use sans-serif fonts in everything ranging from printed material through to on-screen use as part of a consistent brand identity.

I think that dynamicduo meant that Comic Sans should not be used in a professional setting. Sans-serif fonts in general are fine. Look at Kodak.

I meant Comic Sans specifically, as indicated by my use of “it” instead of “they” as I was replying to the directly proceeding comment from girlofscience. I’m a web and graphic designer, I know all fonts have their own pros and cons. Even Comic Sans has an appropriate use – comic books and kids programs :)

@dynamicduo: Have you watched the Helvetica documentary?

Ha, one day I was wearing my Ban Comic Sans shirt, and the guy who invented Internet Explorer asked me what problem I had with Comic Sans. Apparently, the creator of Comic Sans (Vincent Connare) was one of his buddies when they were working for Microsoft, and my coworker (who invented Internet Explorer) claims he’s partially responsible for popularizing it because he chose to include it in the font package. What a failure.

I am fascinated by how many people love to talk about font. I thought my nephew was a weird, odd ball, but I guess there are more of you out there.
I love talking to people who think in realms that my mind has difficulty understanding. Note to self: “Never use comic sans, it makes people hate you and your product.”
I learned something today, that’s always a good day.

girlofscience, nope but it’s on my list!

Vincent Connare’s report of the creation of Comic Sans is a short but interesting read.

I don’t blame him for it. I blame people who don’t know what they’re doing, choosing to use it on a Christmas poster they designed in Word because “it looks happy”, or even better, on a Lost Dog poster (oh the irony). But it’s really hard and a bit mean to blame someone for being font ignorant, which is why my best coping strategy for Comic Sans is to point it out and complain to my partner or family nearby :)

You guys are making me self conscious.

I went to my relative’s house for Thankgiving and they were showing me their new business cards.
I realized how dorky it sounded after I said it, but I really did love their font and domain name.
oh well

@fireside: Haha, how American Psycho.

Sorry Judi, I don’t mean to! Personally I try not to think of the things I know I don’t know, and even those I don’t know that I don’t know. Such as fashion, I know nothing about it one bit, given that I am known to go shopping in my pyjamas, I wonder how many people laugh at my “style” :)

That makes me feel better, I’m a Nordstrom expert. I’ll cover you for shopping if you’ll cover me for typeset.

Deal!

I am ashamed to admit it, but I use Comic Sans for personal emails. I wouldn’t use it for anything professional, say a resume or whatever, but I actually like it for personal stuff.

FLAG AS ABUSE!

Or as Kurtz put it best: “The horror, the horror!”

[mod says:] I giggled when augustlan’s post came up in my inbox flagged as “porn”.

Hahahaha, that was me.

I always wanted to be in the porn industry!

I guess now you can say you have. Fluther is full of surprises!

Why do some people still spit into the wind?
Life is full of mysteries.

i do not know. i only use caps if i’m trying to really express something, but not for like a paragraph, you know, just a word haha. i know someone who fills out surveys on myspace and they type every answer in all caps and it drives me up the wall. when i attempt to read them i just hear them yelling everything they typed.