Beep. Beep.
“nm. Jus thinkng wat 2 do!”
“c I wantd 2 ask u smthng”
“s”
“r u cing sm1?????? :D”
“no.
y?”
“jus thot will let u knw tht I hav
been thinkng abt u”
“so?”
“u get it rite?????? J”
“no”
Monosyllabic
answers to question that need answers equivalent to that of 6 marks questions
of a History exam. This is what happens when you try to make someone feel
something with your text messages. By text messages I mean the text messages through
different channels of online chat, Whatsapp or the antique SMS service.
Albert
Mehrabian’s research tells us that communication follows the 7-38-55 rule. What
you intend to communicate, 7% is communicated by words, 38% by tone and 55% by
body language. The best of us think that we can communicate something as
important a message such as falling in love, breaking up, congratulating an
achievement, pleasantries and much more important things in life through chats
and text messages. The other day in class, there was an amazing example taken
by a prof. to illustrate this point. Consider the following example.
“Why don’t I
take you out for dinner tonight?”
There can be
many interpretations to this message depending on the stress on a word (tone)
and we will look at three of them and the message that the tone conveys?
1. Stress on ‘I’
“Why
don’t I take you out for
dinner tonight?”
This
refers to the ‘I’ as an individual over someone else. It means, “Please give me
a chance to take you out for dinner tonight over he or she” The speaker is
clinging on to the receiver and awaits his/her chance.
2. Stress on ‘you’
“Why
don’t I take you out for
dinner tonight?”
This
refers to the importance that you are giving to the other person. It means, “I
will take only you for dinner tonight and no one else” Although the speaker has
the authority to choose, he/she chooses only the receiver here and being
magnanimous.
3. Stress on ‘tonight’
“Why
don’t I take you out for dinner tonight?”
This
refers to ‘time’ that is tonight. It means, “I can take you out for dinner only
tonight and not today or tomorrow or sometime else” The balance is slightly in
favor of the speaker holding the authority due to many circumstantial contexts.
If a simple
sentence like this can be interpreted in myriad ways, what will happen to the
most important things that we wish to communicate and what about its
interpretations? Not everyone is a pioneer in the art of communicating through
words. Communication is not just about having a great vocabulary. It is about
using them properly to convert your thoughts into words that the receiver will
understand easily. A person with an extensive vocabulary may still be a poor
communicator. As Navjot Sidhu would say, “You are not rewarded for having
brains, but for using them”
Mathematically
speaking, going by the laws of probability, it’s easier to misunderstand than
understand. From the above example, only one option out of the 3 or 4 possible
interpretations is the intended one. But, you still have a chance of 75% of
being misunderstood.
I am not arguing
against the use of texting services. When it comes to keep mundane
conversations going in a boring classes, there is no substitute for it. But,
text messages are not a substitute to important communications. But the
downfall is, we as a society are happier texting with smileys on and the trend
is catching up fast.
Due to paucity
of time in our lives, running the rat race we look over certain elementary
stuffs and screw things up for ourselves. If only we decide to call someone up
and convey what we want to, we atleast have 45% certainty of being rightly
understood than the 7% success rate with just words.
When you need to
tell someone something important, don’t type it out, but go in person or dial
their number!
