The Effect of Sarcasm on Communication

Sarcasm ends up working very well in person, but much more poorly across email or over text messages. It doesn't work quite as well as it does in person. Another way of showing this effect is when you ask people to clap happy birthday and then ask them to do that in front of someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Very few people when they hear you clapping happy birthday think happy birthday. They think of all sorts of other songs,. Some of them get the right answer, but it's a lot more difficult for the receiver to make sense of that information. A lot of miscommunication is predicted by this stuff.