Texting, emailing, twitteringit's all the rage. But recently I got myself into trouble with a typed communication.
Let's talk about communication. It's a process of exchanging information to share knowledge, express feelings, state our positions, or share our skills. However, communication is more than words. It's made up of verbal (words) and nonverbal (gestures, expressions, etc.) messages.
Researchers in communication suggest that only 7% of a message is sent through words and the rest is all nonverbal expressions. A lot of the time it is what the person is not saying, their inflection, their gestures, their expression, their tone, and most importantlyyour gut reaction to what they've saidwhich speaks louder than words. With texting and emailing you only get the written word which definitely has its limitations, especially if you do not know the person well. (That was my faux pas.)
When you type your communication, it is difficult to express your feelings and intentions. Some emails have added emoticons, but watching a little smiley-face jump up and down is not quite the same thing. If someone sends you a smiley-face, what is their true emotion? Are they serious, lying, depressed, or being sarcastic?
When communicating with family and friends, you already know their intentions and feelings toward you. If they accidentally type something that sounds a little odd, you assume the best. That doesn't always happen with acquaintances. With texting, we rarely get the chance to interrupt and say, "What did you say?" All we see are those glaring words on the screen that we are enraged about and quickly respond to without thinking it through. People rarely text back and ask, "What did you mean?" or "Could you explain?"
For some reason with the written word, what you type is fact and not to be questioned. If someone typed it, they meant it. But how often in verbal communication does something come out wrong? In that case, we get the chance to quickly say, "I didn't mean that the way it sounded." Unfortunately, once the message is sent - it's sent. And unfortunately, it might be sent to more people than you had planned. (Another one of my faux pas.)
The current estimate is that more than ten million texts and emails are sent each second and is rapidly replacing all other forms of communication. Sad to think about when you realize the importance of non-verbal communication. It could explain why the number of internet scams are increasing by exponential numbers. In 2007, The Internet Crime Complaint Center reported these statistics:
o Online auction fraud was the most reported type of fraud and accounted for 44.9% of consumers complaints
o Non-delivered merchandise and/or payment made up 19% of complaints
o Check fraud represented 4.9% of complaints
o About 70% of the fraud victims were scammed through the web
o About 30% of the victims were scammed by emails
Of course I'm not saying that you can't be duped in person, but if someone shows up as my new financial advisor in an unmarked white truck, wearing a red bandana and white T-shirt, with tattoos and nervous flashy eyes, I'm probably not going to do business with him...let alone let him in the house.
As I was growing up, my mother used to recite this quote:
"Keep your words soft and sweet, You'll never know from time-to-time, Which ones you'll have to eat."
Those words prove even more important today with the number of words being sent by text and email. And you cannot always be prepared for the way those innocent words will be interpreted without your sweet voice and naïve nature for them to judge you by.
Written communication used to be an art form in which people took the time to think out. Now it is often a hurried, thoughtless response. I have sent a number of emails giving information and the immediate, clueless responses amaze me. It is like the person didn't take the time to actually read what I wrote, in some cases they've come to the wrong conclusion and fired back a thoughtless email. (Their faux pas.)
To sum up, here are a few things to remember when texting or emailing:
1. Read each email or text slowly to make sure you understand the meaning.
2. Think about your response before firing one back, especially if you are angry.
3. Re-read your response for any errors. Spell checkers won't always catch wording mistakes.
4. Check and make sure that who you are sending it to is accurate.
5. Make sure that any sarcastic messages won't be misinterpreted.
6. If you receive a text or email that offends you, take the time to question the sender first before responding to his/her statement.
7. Don't text or email while driving or distracted.
No, I am not going to tell you what actually happened with my faux pas. I'll keep that between me and the thousands of contacts that received my poorly-worded, emoticon-free email. Hopefully, this is one communication I got right. :? )
Cindy A. Christiansen is a multi-published fiction writer.
Unless you're worried about the type of email you might get back from Cindy, email her from her website at:
c.a.dragonfly.googlepages.com
She will enter you in a drawing for a beautiful, beaded bookmark.
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