Sunday, March 31, 2013

Actions, louder than words


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!



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