Don’t communicate more, say more

We communicate more than we ever did before. With all the easy to use tools literally right at our finger tips, we can reach and be in touch with so many people – our family, friends, colleagues - all the time. We start communicating the minute we wake up and the conversation doesn’t stop till we fall asleep.

But even though we communicate that much, are we really saying a lot? It looks like the ‘oh so old’ question of quantity vs. quality question to me.

I started talking about how technology changes our relationships earlier in the blog with Vivian Bader, a clinical social work therapist with 22 years of experience. So I think it would be fair to bring her back to advise us on what’s going on with all this abundance of communicating and on how to deal with it.

As a practicing therapist, Vivian says she’s been witnessing the change in how we communicate first-hand: “it’s changing a lot and it’s changing fast. The new technology helps people be more connected, but it often leads them to communication less. Technology shortens their conversations, they start talking in soundbites, therefore a lot of substance and nuances get lost.”

Come to think of it, she is right. I wrote here about the fight I had with my friend by text messages over of nothing – the entire incident was a misunderstanding that came out of us misinterpreting the texts.

So how do we deal with this new reality – technology is sure not going anywhere, if nothing else it’s going to become more integral in our lives. Of course, there is no one solution. Here is what Vivian recommends:

“In most situations, communication is key, so make an effort to talk more in-person, especially if you need to discus an important matter or make a big decision. Definitely avoid emailing, texting, facebooking or any other electronic mean of communication in the heat of anger. Waiting till you see each other face to face can be very beneficial by letting you both to cool down. Don’t use the text message lingo or jargon, write the way you would talk in real life, that would make it sound more like you.”