Research at LBD and other universities has identified many important differences between online interaction in the LBD environment, and typical face2face interactions. 

We believe these are two of the most important: (For a list of Significant Differences between the LBD environment and the typical face2face environment, see the table of differences.)

Time, and the perception of it, has been identified as a main area in which face2face interactions may differ significantly from online interactions. 

The hard word limit for face2face interactions to remain comprehensible is an average of 150 wpm. Spoken information cannot exceed this speed limit. In the LBD environment, information in text and graphics is read and responded to.  The quantity of information is determined by the group.  As participants are reading, they can respond.  All the participants can respond in the same moment, however, in the LBD environment the posts are listed in the order in which they are received by the server software. The time stamp on the post is to the minute.  It is not unusual to receive 20 to 30 posts per minute of any word length.

An example of time compression is shown bellow. In the figure, the total time of the messages would take 76 minutes to speak out loud at a 150 wpm rate, yet the elapsed time in the LBD LearningRoom was only 30 minutes.   In other words, in a face2face discussion, only the red messages could have been shared within the 30 minute period and quite simply, there would not have been time left for the 46 minutes the blue messages would have required. 

To reiterate: the blue bars represent group participants in the LBD environment who would not be able to speak in a face2face meeting or classroom, even if they so desired, due to the hard limit of 150 wpm inherent in serial interaction.

Writing, Reading and Comprehension increases over time for the group. As the two curves show below, the group as a whole can, over time (ten weeks in this example),  increase the total content of their online discussion.  Analysis has shown, they become better readers by the end of the course, their writing improves, and their comprehension rate increases.  The net result is participants become more literate as they spend more time in the large groups interacting with other participants in the LBD environment.