Adult learning has been traditionally perceived as conceptual, rational and cognitive. Yet, adults undertaking studies do experience a range of emotions, both positive (enjoyment, pride, satisfaction) and negative (fear, anxiety, dread, shame). And these emotions are not necessarily a sign of insanity, as Kant would have diagnosed it (in his opinion, emotion being ‘an illness of the mind’) but essential ingredients of the learning process. Affective factors seem to play a crucial role when it comes to motivation or lack of it to pursue the subject matter of the course. Of course the view of learning and teaching now is much more holistic, trying to integrate cognition and emotion into the instructional design. However, isn’t that uncanny that expression of certain emotions might still be looked down on as a potential sign of weakness, hysteria, lack of balance?

This might be even further complicated in an online learning environment which on the surface appears to be emotionally impoverished – disembodied, devoid of non-verbal cues, blurring social and spatial boundaries, in other words ‘the ultimate disorienting dilemma (Campbell-Gibson, 2000 in O’Regan, 2003), too overwhelming and alienating to make subtle emotions explicit. And indeed students experience confusion and isolation when trying to navigate through the course site and establish contact with peers and tutors.

However, some of the rules regarding feelings must be renegotiated very soon and some users decide to disclose personal or even intimate details at some point of the course, often in the initial phase. For instance, I had one e-colleague divulging to me she'd lost a teenage son at the beginning of the second week of a 20-week course and I must say I was at a loss as to how I should react to that. The reasons for such sudden sincerity were obscure at the moment as well as the way she felt about the confession. I was in a bit of a shock and started wondering why such things happen.

Some researchers claim that what is regarded as an impoverishing aspect is actually very enriching. Lack of body language and visual cues introduces a greater degree of intimacy into online zones, often loosening users’ self-protection mechanisms and pushing them to disclose private details, including the greatest intimacies. Could that be likened to the anecdotal ‘stranger on the plane’ phenomenon? It is often considered that the body in fact exists in cyberspace – already in the late 90s Argyle and Shields (in Gilmore and Warren, 2007:593) stated that the technology mediates the body, making its expressive qualities apparent in different ways. After all, the term ‘virtuality’ comes from the Latin virtus, which stands for excellence, potency and efficacy (Online Etymology Dictionary). Although the computer-related usage dates back to the 1950s, perhaps the traces of the root meaning still resonate in this modern lexical expansion.

Another facilitating factor at play, especially in regard to tightly-knit communities, might be an increased sense of community (which might build quickly on closed courses geared to a small group of like-minded professionals like in the above described case), common cause and purpose and trust that  builds up over the course of time. I would be curious to know which mechanisms are in place when people decide whether and when they can start trusting other online participants on the course and go further in disclosing personal information, beyond the point of stating the obvious 'I like reading 19-cent historical novels and listen to trip hop in my free time'.

Another interesting aspect is how online users go about their decision regarding who they are going to open up to. Based on anecdotal evidence and mostly on my own experience, I can state that even on asynchronous courses, where there is no real-time communication built in, you can create a sense of your personality through the way you express yourself. How do we pick up on the vibes from other people online, how do we come up with this expectation: ‘Hmm, I think I can easily relate to this person but not the other. She/He has got something about them. I think we’re on the same wavelength.’ Does that require an extra plug-in in our emotional intelligence to be able to read people online or is it by pure fluke that I managed to pick out friendly souls, including my current partner, in the chaos of the online? As I said this is a sheer speculation based on anecdotal evidence from my own and my friends' lives.  I am aware of the other darker side of the net where people meddle with their identity to harm others.