While patiently
waiting for inspiration to strike for this blog post, I was mindlessly surfing
the internet and chanced upon a quotation by a famous American businessman,
Peter F. Drucker.
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.
As I’d
read this quote after a thought-provoking discussion in class about the
importance of non-verbal communication, I felt rather enlightened by this
simple yet powerful statement. And I have to say that I agree fully with Mr
Drucker. As many of us know, communication does not just include speech.
Communication encompasses many other aspects such as emotion, tone and choice
of words, just to name a few. After reading the quote, I started thinking about
how communication has been so greatly influenced by technology over the last
few decades.
I’m
pretty sure that the whole discussion of how technology affects communication
has been done to death. However I thought it’d be a pretty interesting topic to
bring up for my very first blog post. After all, this in a module about
communication, and here I am communicating with the world though this blog with
the aid of technology! What strikes me most about technology in communication
is that we rarely need to engage each other face-to-face. From sending e-mails,
to making VOIP calls, to sending text messages, the importance of physical
proximity is declining. With so many conduits of
transmitting and receiving information, communication has become so easy, and
yet so complex. We can communicate so much faster with a large number of
people, but this comes with a price. Without face-to-face interaction, we have
relatively little to work with when it comes to reading expressions or
reactions that the other party is conveying. In other words, it gets slightly
tricky to comprehend non-verbal communication.
Case-in-point: a rather amusing incident happened a
few weeks ago. A friend of mine sent me a short joke via a text message. I read the joke (which I found really funny) and replied with a single word—“Hilarious”.
Within seconds, she responded. “It’s ok if you didn’t find it funny. That’s no reason to get sarcastic”.
Within seconds, she responded. “It’s ok if you didn’t find it funny. That’s no reason to get sarcastic”.
I was extremely surprised. I had genuinely felt that
her joke was funny and responded so, but she misconstrued my message and
thought I was being sarcastic. I called her immediately and explained what had
happened, and she told me why she had come to the conclusion that I was being sarcastic. Firstly, I hadn't included a 'LOL' or 'Haha'.
Secondly, I did not add a smiling emoticon. Thirdly, I could have added a
little more embellishment to my message by telling her why I thought the joke
was funny. I'd obviously made the grave mistake of making her misread my non-verbal signals.
I thought the whole incident was rather disturbing.
Here I had hurt my friend’s feelings simply because she had misread the tone
and emotion behind my response. I then thought to myself how much easier things
would have been had she told me the joke to my face. She would then be able to
see my reaction with her own two eyes.
I guess I’ve been feeling rather reflective about
communication and how we are so dependent on technology to express ourselves.
In the world of e-mails, text messages and instant messaging, we no longer need
physical proximity nor speech to convey our thoughts and opinions. I guess I'm also feeling this
way partly due to the fact that technology is penetrating our lives at a very
quick rate, and we will have to be aware of certain etiquettes when we use
technology in communication. Furthermore, I will now have to convey my
thoughts and feelings on this blog quite regularly, and I hope that I'll be able to express myself clearly and effectively!
Hey Tanisha,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote a very nice post on how technology affects communication! Technology has indeed changed (for the better or worse) the way we communicate. As you have mentioned, we can now reach more people, further, and at a faster (not to mention, cheaper) rate. I am sure people who are abroad, studying or working (or even enjoying a vacation), can relate very well to this. The advent of “whatsapp”, “skype”, even “Facebook”, has not only made communicating with people who are overseas much easier, but cheaper as well. Imagine talking on the phone and/or sending text messages, when you are overseas, at the rate you use “whatsapp” and “skype”. I’m pretty sure you will not want to see your phone bill at the end of the month. To drive home my point, communications infrastructure is quickly improving with faster and readily available (sometimes free) wireless connections, paving the way for greater use of new channels of communication.
As much as I agree with you that communication has decreased the need to engage each other face-to-face, I have to disagree to a certain extent. Looking at the trend, technology seems to be heading towards more “face-to-face” communication. Why do I say that? Look at our computers and mobile phones; they are mostly fitted with a front-facing camera for the purpose of “face-to-face” communication. This improvement or rather widespread use (since video conferencing has been around for quite sometime already) of technology has enabled us to read facial expressions or reactions quite sufficiently. Sufficiently since the technology is still a tad lag.
I thought your case-in-point was very relevant, but I feel it is more likely because of way we communicate. Somehow I find myself (and many of my peers) including words like “haha” and symbols like “ (: ” very frequently in text messages. Sometimes, “haha” was used even though the preceding text was not exactly funny. Thinking about it, I feel that these words and symbols serve to make the conversation “friendlier”. Do you? Furthermore, the use of a word followed by period does seem to carry a certain degree of seriousness in the tone. Imagine a person saying “Good job.” and “Good job!”, the latter seems friendlier in my opinion.
Anyway, your post was enjoyable to read and it made me think about how I communicate with my peers. Good job!
Hello Tanisha aka best friend,
ReplyDeleteyet and again I am always awed by your ability to write since the first day I knew you. This is a very interesting read so you deserve a big hug:)I do agree with you on the fact that technology affects communication. Let us look at the example of facebook. Before Facebook appeared, about 15 years back, people visited their friends personally to catch up on life. They also invited their friends and relatives to parties and other functions using invitation cards or by calling them over the phone. However today the type of communication has changed tremendously where people no longer have to experience the hassle of inviting friends and relatives personally. They simply have to create a facebook event and invite their desired guests for the party. This may or may not be a bad thing in the 21st century. Infact it can helpful for the frantic lifestyle that Singaporeans go through. Also it saves the telephone bill and the postage fee. I would like to thank you for bringing this point up:)Thank you for sharing you views Tanisha (L)
Hello Tanisha. Your name is very funky by the way. That aside, I like how you were able to amplify your case-in-point to demonstrate an entirely new class of communication breakdowns and social norms in communication introduced by modern technology. Although I think most of the guardians of these new do's and don'ts are female, I do agree it does make a difference because when we can't see the visual cues that normally appear in face-to-face conversations, we have a tendency to nitpick on what we have or what we don't have, which in your friend's case, a lame emoticon.
ReplyDeleteI think we live in quite an interesting stage of modern communication technology. It is an era where people have the means to get networked with more people than ever possible (think six degrees of separation) and yet at the same time, because it is so convenient to become 'friends', our alliances with people have never been more superficial.
This is something I do think about sometimes. Gone are the days when we all ask each other where a certain classmate has disappeared to since primary school. You google her name and she's there. You find out she's doing well in another country. You might add her as a friend, or not, depending on whether you feel you were close enough once upon a time but the sad part is you cared to wonder about her well-being and she'd never know it.
That kind of warps communication in a way. That an inanimate thing (your profile page/wall) can act as a proxy for the entirety that you are in this new communication model and the other party gets information about you via a uni-directional portal.
Hello Tanisha :)
ReplyDeleteYour blog is such an interesting read! I do confess that I am a social networking (online) junkie. With such increased (and affordable!) accessibility to connect with peers, the appropriate communication cues of face-to-face interaction and online activity may be difficult to discern, or even integrated into our daily lives.
Like what Ariele had mentioned, such increased networking on social sites like Facebook has allowed us to be informed of people whom you have never (and probably never will) met for years. However, I feel that there should be a limit to such penetrance in technology integrated our daily communication. Maybe it's just me but it has reached the stage whereby my friends are relying on information from the newsfeed to strike real-life conversations. Somehow I feel very uncomfortable with the complete lack of privacy as the idea and suspense of sharing certain bits of your life is being robbed by a photo on facebook/check-in status/tagged post etc.
Maybe I do value some privacy in my technological presence in a bit to sustain some communication thrill among my friends?
Hi, Tanisha!
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate to your encounter regarding the joke sent in the text message! Whenever something funny is mentioned over text message, whatsapp, Facebook message, or whatever not, I feel obligated to type "hahahaha", or "HAHAHAHA", just to show that I think it's funny even tho thats not how I laugh. And before I send a text to someone who isn't familiar with me, I have to re-read the message at least thrice to see how the other party would interpret it.
It is true that technology has made communication more accessible and definitely, cheaper. However, with the lack of proper communication skills, communication over technology is the most susceptible to misunderstanding. While technology closes up the geographical distance between us and our kins, sometimes, I think it makes communication less genuine because it lacks the personal touch.
This is a well-crafted post, Tanisha, clear and comprehensive in presentation, yet one that is well focused on the way we all need to interface with others through technology nowadays, and one that demonstrates through personal anecdote just how perilous such undertakings can be. Your ideas have also initiated a good discussion from your peers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience and for the very fine effort.