10 levels of intimacy in today’s communication

Jungle drums, smoke signals, morse code…  You got to admit, human communication methods of the past were amazingly cool. Not always as efficient and accessible as the ones we’re using today, but still, I’d prefer the talking drums over a Tweet anytime.

Nonetheless, we have to bless ourselves lucky with the versatility of communication channels at hand today. New York-based Ji Lee, creative director at Google Creative Lab, has ranked the most popular methods according to their levels of intimacy. Here’s his classification, wherein talking is the most intimate form and Facebook or Twitter the most proclaimed ones.

1. Talking
2. Video chat
3. Phone
4. Letter
5. IM
6. Text message
7. Email
8. Facebook message
9. Facebook status update
10. Twitter (Tweet)

I beg to differ. I consider a letter in some cases more romantic, yes, but far less intimate than an instant message or even a text message. That, and he forgot to include the “Facebook Poke” ;)