Why communication is critical, for life
Do you use Facetime, Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp, or Facebook? Today young teens have technology everywhere, sometimes at the tip of our fingers. We use technology everyday and it has grown to become a huge part of our society. Could it be getting better than face to face communication, our primal way of communicating? Face to face communication is important for us human beings and has been a huge part of our survival as a species. That is one of the reasons. I do not think we will stop using it. A reason for that is there are a lot of things technology can not provide interacting in person can.
It is also easy to misunderstand people while talking over the phone since body language and facial expressions are a big part of communication in general. In fact, according to research 90% of communication consists of body language.
The year 1971, professor Albert Mehrabian published a book, in which he discussed and explained some research on non-verbal and verbal communication. This book is called “silent Messages”. In this book, he combines two studies and concludes that communication is 93% non — verbal (53% body language & tone of voice 38%) and 7% verbal. In these studies, the subjects are asked to listen to someone speak and guess the emotion. They guessed 50% more correctly when they saw her face rather than hearing her voice. This just proves the fact that seeing someone in person helps you understand how they are feeling. (1)
When conversing, how the other person is standing, the facial expressions they make, and other small details make you get a better understanding of how they are feeling. It also helps you understand what the second party is trying to convey. This is something you can not replace even with video calls like skype, the footage is 2 dimensional and is not the same as standing next to a friend. Even going as far into the future as holograms becoming a regular way to communicate, you need to ask yourself some questions. What are his/her surroundings? How does it smell? These are a couple of things that change the overall experience of the chat.
Face to face communication helps you build relationships full of trust and it can help you build up your leadership. You also sound more convincing face to face.(2)
It is hands down the best, most efficient way of communication, so why give it up? I am very certain face to face communication will be an ongoing thing in the future. It makes it easier to express your feeling and emotions too.
What have we learned today? In this essay, I have clearly stated my opinion and reasons as to why face to face communication is the best way of communicating. There are details you really can not get from the technology in the present world. These are things such as the surroundings, body language, tone of the voice, and more. Hopefully this was enough to spark your interest and curiosity to the miracles of the human mind. Thank you for taking the time to understand my point of view.
conclusion
Sources
- Silent messages, Albert Mehrabian
- (1971)https://www.yourthoughtpartner.com/blog/bid/44390/leading-in-person-6-reasons-to-communicate-face-to-face article last updated Apr 15, 2019
