Twitter/Facebook – Are They Destroying Our Face To Face Communication Skills?
There is no doubt that humans were built to communicate with each other. Communicating and interaction makes us feel good as it makes us feel wanted and accepted if our communication, either physical or non-physical leads to a positive outcome socially. Communication has been at the core of our human existence since time began, but for millions of years, human communication was delivered by physical and face to face means only. The Internet, web and sms have definitely changed the way that many of us now communicate, but is it healthy for us and others around us to communicate too much non-physically?
You could argue that these new communication methods that are not face to face are destroying our core skills of physical communication, and perhaps even destroying the relationships of those around us in our physical sphere.
In my opinion, true communication is a lost art. We have dozens of ways to send instant messages but very few ways to build trust, rapport and relationships. Old fashioned “sales” training has given way to “product” training; so-called sales people are masters of technical specifications but not so good at making a client feel comfortable or understood…
Again, my opinion, and I feel that you cannot really “sell” via email or text, and you cannot build relationships that way (selling yourself to another). Humans need to see a face and hear a voice in order to bond and make a relationship meaningful. [Bring back Tom Hopkins, Allan Pease & Zig Ziglar!]
Great comments. Perhaps the opportunities for those in business that spend the time enhancing those face to face communication skills will be the big winners with this change???
Even though I love the access to information and the ability to keep in touch with people “instantly” via the WWW, I have to admit that true interpersonal skills are being pushed to the wayside. There have been studies that show people who use the internet (whether it be email, social networking, etc) as their primary source of communication, have more of a chance of developing depression and isolation, which I think could help explain some of the rise in teenage suicide/attempt rates since these days they spend almost all their time MySpacing or Facebooking,etc. instead of actually interacting with their friends and environment on a personal physical level. I hate to see how that generation is going to deal with the “real world” outside of the internet and MTV when they have to become responsible adults and actually deal with people face-to-face.
I have to admit that I am first person to write an email instead of picking up the phone. Not only is it more convenient for me but I also find that I express myself better this way instead of actually speaking to someone, perhaps because I can construct my thoughts better when writing, instead of the faster process of speaking. On the other hand, there have been many times when something I’ve “said” has been construed in a way not intended because someone couldn’t see my facial expression or hear my tone of voice, so that proves (to me) that personal interaction is definitely important in the way the human brain seeks out more than just text to process a conversation.
As a side note, this virtual way of communication has definitely pushed good grammar and spelling skills to the back burner. I hate it when people have an entire conversation using acronyms or letters to substitute an entire word (“where u at? L8R.”) Every once in while is fine (LOL, for instance) but when I have to pull out a decoder book to figure out what you’ve just said….that’s just ridiculous.
It is going to be very interesting to watch the social trend over the next 10 years and the impact the new virtual communication methods will have. No doubt humans require more than just virtual relationships for contentment, so more depression may be an outcome.
In my opinion, the future social trends will not be positive.