Communicating in an Electronic Age

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In a world that has become so dependent on technology, it is no wonder that verbal communication has loss some finesse among the generation of tomorrow. In 2009 there were 152.7 billion SMS (Short Message Service) text messages sent monthly in the United States alone (U.S. Wireless Quick Facts, 2009). Through the use of social media and texting, it is now easier than ever before to keep up to date with friends and family.  Although communication has been streamlined, have we inadvertently sacrificed the quality of a relationship in the process? In this post I will discuss possible positive and negative effects of non-verbal communication through technology. I will also show possible barriers that e-communication has on interpersonal relationships, how e-communication has provided an avenue for greater self-disclosure, and provide my strategy for better active, empathetic, and critical listening in the electronic age.

The Internet has become an amazing resource for placing information at your fingertips. Things that once took an immense amount of time to research and find supporting documentation for, now can take minutes. Although this tool can be powerful, it can also be dangerous. Every day I am bombarded with emails from people, mostly well-meaning family, about some of the most random things. If it is not another “truth” about Obama, then it’s about the giants that were uncovered during an archeological dig. My common response is, “did you check snopes.com?” Though snopes.com is not the authority on every topic, they do research and cite their sources, disproving many of the Internet rumors that have filled my inbox. I often wonder how so many of these things get started and how naive we must be to believe them.

The Internet has not only become a place for great research, but a great place for meeting people while enabling them to disengage from face to face interaction. Even with this desire to disengage from society, people still have the desire to be connected. On the Internet this is accomplished through social networking. Social networking has exploded and along with it, Internet dating. With sites such as, www.eHarmony.com, www.match.com, and www.plentyoffish.com, there is something for everyone. They allow you to profile yourself and find a match based upon compatibility, all from the comfort of your own home, without the need to speak to one person. The possibilities are endless.

In a recent article published by The Times, it told a story of a whole relationship that was conducted via text. The entire relationship was five text messages long,

What happened to the days of courting, and getting to know a person? You once had to meet someone and impress them with a great pick-up line, get to know them over weeks and months, talk on the phone forever, meet the parents, then you were able to make a decision whether or not a relationship was worth pursuing. These days, you have the opportunity to slim-line this process. You can see someone first, find their Facebook, research them a little and decide if you want to proceed with the initial text message greeting. All without having to say one word verbally. Amazing.

Has verbal interaction between two people actually become too slow and daunting of a task for the fast pace society that we live in? This is a question that I often ask myself as I pick up my cell phone and choose to text rather than talk. I often justify this by answering with “I can text and keep in touch with more people this way.” This is what makes the decision so difficult. It is sad, but, there are often people who I would rather just text than talk to. Some people are just exhausting to speak with. You know the kind of people I am talking about. The kind, where they talk so long that the cell phone feels like it is going to burn a hole in the side of your head and you keep wondering how much brain cancer is going to result from this exhausting conversation. No doubt, it saves time and is more efficient to text, but am I asking the right question.

The question here should not be whether e-communication is more efficient than traditional verbal communication. The question should be, is a relationship a task that needs to be completed or is it an adventure that deserves the art, skill, and respect of your full attention. I think in some cases, e-communication can become a barrier to effective interpersonal relationships. You see, communicating to even the most difficult people takes skill. You have to learn how to maneuver and guide the conversation to something that is productive. You learn a little about a person and they a little about you. It is an amazing exchange, often referred to as “playing ball.” When I was a kid, I loved to play ball. My friends and I would pass the ball back and forth for hours. Now, it would really suck if we all just stood their staring at each other and nobody was passing the ball. Conversation is the same way, but this skill cannot be achieved without practice.

In light of this topic, my wife and I were discussing how we met and how different our relationship would have started, if at all, if we were courting in the E-Age. My wife and I met 16 years ago, on a blind date. A mutual friend called me up on the house phone (no cell phones back then) and told me about this beautiful girl that I just had to meet. We didn’t have Facebook and the Internet was still prehistoric. What I did was, wait in eager anticipation, wondering what she looked like and what her personality was like. I waited patiently for two days, until Friday night to meet this girl of my dreams. When I did, it was amazing. We spent the night talking and getting to know one another, learning about likes and dislikes, and talking about the most random things. The next few months were filled with conversation and trying to send each other cryptic messages on our beepers. This was fun and filled with the adventure of courtship. I just don’t see the adventure in having the mystery revealed before you have even had a face to face with someone.

Don’t get me wrong, the use of this non-verbal form of communication can be positive as well. These forms of communication have helped our culture, in some ways, to express their self-concept. Every email, text message, and social networking page has a little self-concept in it. This is not done haphazardly, but sometimes with a lot of thought and detail. To a certain degree, people probably know more about themselves and those around them now, then ever before. I guess, this is why it is called the Information Age and not the Relationship Age. My opinion, whether or not this form of communication is good, does not really matter. Maybe the correct question to explore should be, whether or not this form of communication creates any barriers to interpersonal interactions.

According to Organization Science, the age of technology has enabled a means for organizations to advance and create an atmosphere where employees no longer are required to come to work to work. This has created the means for each employee to have meetings, discuss challenges, and make million dollar decisions, all from within email. Because of this, organization productivity skyrockets, while interpersonal relationships and the bond between employees has diminished (Wiesenfeld, Raghuram,Garud, 1999).

I have been working in the Technology field for over 15 years now and have seen the above example grow into a mature form of work culture. E-mail has changed the face of business and no office is complete without it. In fact, if office e-mail goes down, it is considered a mission critical event. The sad thing about this is, work is most times, where you spend most of your day. The “water cooler” interaction is a thing of the past. I believe this shows how electronic communication, in some way, has created a barrier to interpersonal communication. The camaraderie and bond that employees once shared is a thing of the past.

The E-Age has also created a new level of Self-Disclosure. It seems that people feel a sense of freedom when creating Social Networking pages. People are excited to post some of the most personal information and photos of themselves. What these people don’t know, when applying for a job, is that your potential employer could also be reading this. In 2006 CBS reported that it is estimated at least 20 percent of companies were scanning the social networking sites when deciding whom to hire (Clark, 2006). In August 2009, just one year ago, Careerbuilder.com conducted a survey of employers that showed the 20 percent in 2006 has grown to 45 percent. The survey showed the below results for denying a candidate:

For some reason people disconnect what they place on the web with how they will be perceived.

I believe, as with anything, balance is key. Social networking, texting, and these forms of communication are relatively new in our society. We are in the obsession stage of electronic communication. If we are to remain a community, we will need to find a balance. We will eventually see the need once again for verbal communication and that there are some things that cannot be expressed electronically, such as, charisma, emphasis, and sarcasm in a conversation. One of the ways that I am committed to improving my interpersonal relationships is through active listening. I struggle with empathetic and active listening because I become too critical in my conversation. I get lost in the details and my mind wonders losing focus of the conversation. If our society has any desire to remain a community, they too will need to practice this. This can only be practiced through verbal communication.

There was a movie that came out in 2009 called Surrogates. Every person had a surrogate created for him or her and communication moved to a completely different level. With artificial intelligence, these robots could look and sound like anything that you wanted it to. A digital link between the individual and the surrogate allowed the human to communicate with others as normal. After years, people started not coming out of the house at all, allowing the surrogates to interact all the time. One thing that disturbed me was, you never knew if you were interacting with the person you were intending to interact with. Remember, the robots could look and sound like anything that you wanted to design them to look and act like. People literally forgot how to communicate as themselves.

I know this is a stretch, but I would hate to see our society progress to a point where we know the electronic you better than the physical you, where we know your email and texting more than your voice. Hopefully we find balance and are able to fine-tune the positive and negative roles that technology plays in interpersonal communication so that we can remain effective no matter which form of communication that we use.

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