Communication

Kelly 2/8
It's amazing how many ways we have to talk to people and connect with one another today. Letters, phone, e-mail, several types of instant messenger clients, texting, and video messaging. Not to mention sites that are centered around human communication; Twitter Facebook, Myspace, Linked In and any others you can think of. We can communicate in so many ways that it is just a little bit mind boggling. And oh yeah, we can just talk to one another face to face. :D

I don't know how everyone else deals with it all, but I have a hierarchy of communication in my mind. It goes a bit like this: internet (fb, twitter ect), email, IM, phone (text or talk), video chat, and lastly face to face. Each level implies a different amount of trust and knowledge of a person. Also, notice now letter writing is not even on the list? I think it should be somewhere between video and face; however, I don't write a lot of letters. Letters also make me think of how we perceive communication as well.

Letter writing feels like a lost art to me now, and despite the long illustrious history of the mail I now associate it with bills and junk mail. However, when people talk about the future, it always seems to include video phones. Isn't that exactly what video chat is? But we don't see it that way at all. It is just a technology that we use all the time. So the old form of communication is dismissed, not even given it's fair historical due; while the newer forms of communication are just seen as mundane rather than a sign of the future ahead.

Besides all of the connotations that come with communication, that is a lot of what we strive to do as people. Perhaps it is the need to be understood, but we are always trying to tell someone something in some way.

Julia 2/14

In my mind, one of the most amazing things about communication in the technology age is how often it still fails. I mean, who hasn't been misinterpreted (or done some misinterpreting) in an email or in chat? Some things (sarcasm!) are difficult to translate into text.

--tangent--

Not to mention having a constant written record can get us into trouble. For instance, where I work old emails are archived on the computers. Doesn't matter if you hire someone new, all of his or her predecessor's emails are available (unless that person deleted them). Let me tell you, I've found some weird stuff, things have nothing to do with work and are none of my business. And yet, there they are for me to access.

I think because communication today appears to be so ephemeral (it has no physical presence, for instance), we forget that it's actually a lot more permanent. Calls can be traced, chats saved, emails archived. If you destroy a letter, it's gone forever. If you destroy a text...well, it might not be!

--end tangent--

But yes, even with all of these methods of communication (and I agree with you, there are hierarchies), communication breaks down. Some people argue that it's because we have too many ways to communicate, that we're actually destroying our own ability to interact with other people. Not true. It's more that communication always fails at some point because no two people have the same human experience. In some way, we diverge and that is why communication can be challenging. Whether it's in text or in person, sometimes we just miss the mark.

Good communication is about empathy. If you can understand where a person is, relate to their worldview, and then explain your own in a way they can understand -- that's communication. Doesn't matter if it's in person or on two computers halfway around the world.