[title size=”2″ content_align=”left” style_type=”single solid” sep_color=”” class=”” id=””]Texting Can Never Replace the Richness of a Face to Face Conversation…[/title]
We are able to perceive others’ emotions by the subtle changes in facial expressions, body movements, and tone that occur in millisecond intervals. This innate ability has been with us from the day we were born, but – as we engage more and more in text based communication – we slowly lose this power of understanding each other.
People often ask me why I call them to continue an otherwise short conversation or why I ‘observe’ their face while we speak in person and the answer is quite simple: Because I can.
Virtual communication (texting, e-mail, chats, etc) provides us with an excellent way to ‘talk’ to each other without having the typical requirements of dedicated time allocation for each party and the opportunity of an asynchronous (not realtime) response. This is very helpful when in meetings, at work, school or any other activity that is taking up our time and cannot be interrupted for more than a few brief moments. That being said, I disagree with the use of text-based communication at those times when we are able to use our voices to comunicate and even more so, when we can see each other face to face.
When someone speaks, they give much more information non-verbally than they do verbally. Texting greatly limits the intention of that message since all that we are left with are the words – and most of the time with bad or inexistent punctuation – making that same group of words even more ambiguous and hard to comprehend.
My recommendations are:
If you have to text, by all means do so, but try to provide a clear message to your readers (because essentially that is what they are) by indicating the appropriate pauses and word separation you intend them to make.
If you have to make a call, use a landline or the least latency method you can find. Latency induces unnecessary pauses in a conversation and basically destroys any possibility of achieving the natural synchrony we look for when talking. This is why some of you may feel frustrated during certain phone calls and don’t seem to find an explanation for it.
Finally, when talking to someone face-to-face always remember to look into their faces instead of at them. You will notice microexpressions that emerge from their eyebrows, lips, nostrils and maybe even tiny movements in the muscles of their body. Try to absorb all this information and it will surely make your conversation as rich as it can be, trust me.
