Navigating the World of Digital Communication
Not too long ago, a series of articles about improving our communication skills would not have needed an installment about digital communication. The articles would have been released in a magazine rather than on a blog, and if you wanted to get a hold of someone, you’d either have to call their landline or track them down in person. For some of us, a world with no texting, no Slack-ing, and no Google Chats sounds kind of nice. And for others, the thought of having to communicate everything via phone calls and word of mouth sounds like a nightmare. But, whatever your feelings about digital communication, it’s everywhere now, and it’s here to stay.
So, before we wrap up our series on effective communication, we would be wise to take a look at the wide world of digital communication and how we can navigate it. There’s certainly a lot that could be said on the topic — far too much for us to cover in a single post — but, for now, we’ll focus on the factors that can make it challenging to communicate effectively through digital channels and how we can shift our perspective on the whole thing in order to grow in our communication skills.
Convenience vs. Connection & Context
I won’t take time and space here to try and convince you that digital communication is convenient. That’s the biggest selling point of all forms of digital communication — it’s more convenient than talking in person because you can’t always be in person. From ordering DoorDash or sending a Marco Polo of your toddler, the rise of digital communication has meant that you can share information with pretty much anyone at pretty much any time. That’s enormous. That’s fantastic. But it brings its issues too.
What do you lose when you gain the convenience of digital communication? What’s the trade-off? There are two. When you trade in-person communication for digital, you lose some of the informational context and some of the human connection. If you’ve never given much thought to the relationship between verbal and non-verbal communication, read our previous post! But for the moment, suffice it to say that a lot of context is given and connection is formed through in-person communication. How much you lose of those two things depends on the type of digital communication you’re using. Digital channels are not all created equal. A basic principle is that the more convenience you get out of the medium, the less context and connection there will be.
With in-person communication, context and connection are gained through multiple channels. It isn’t just someone’s words that tell us what they need or how they feel. It’s also their expressions, their tone of voice, the speed that they talk, their postures, their eyes. When you’re on a video call, that’s about as close as you can come to real human interaction via a digital channel. But it’s still not the same as sitting across from someone while you have a conversation. Seeing someone on a phone screen isn’t the same, and I’m sure we’ve all experienced a foiled call due to bad reception or a disaster of a Zoom meeting that’s plagued by bad wifi.
In written communication like emails, we use punctuation to try and indicate our tone of voice. I’m not saying this in an angry tone, because look! An exclamation point! But I am being serious, as you can see by my use of a period. And, of course, since I can’t raise my voice or put a hand on you arm to add emphasis to what I’m saying, I’ll make use of CAPITALIZATION and maybe even some emphatic effects. There’s an art to sending a good email, but a lot of times it might be easier if you could just talk in person. Text messages and chats add emojis into the mix — our attempt to communicate what our faces would tell you if you could see them. We laugh, we cringe, we die with our emojis. We send tiny pictures, showing our approval with a thumbs up or our love with hearts in a variety of colors.
But, no matter how expert I am with my use of punctuation, emphatics, or emojis, you can’t see me, you can’t hear my voice, and we respond to each others’ messages every couple hours without ever sitting down together face-to-face. How often will we miscommunicate? How close can we really feel?
The Trick to Digital Communication
I know I sound like I’m just ripping on digital communication, but I promise our advice is not going to be that you should simply stop using your phone and your laptop for your communication. I like digital communication! (Note my use of an exclamation point.) I’m digitally communicating right now! The trick to being an effective communicator in a world that is inundated with digital communication is not to stop communicating digitally, it’s to know when and when not to communicate digitally.
When the information you want to communicate to someone is not important, then it’s not important whether you send them a voice memo or wait to tell them in person. When your info is important, however, it becomes more significant which channel you choose for the communication. Is your message important because it’s time-sensitive? Opt for an email, text, or phone call. Is your message important because it carries emotional or life significance? That’s an in-person conversation. Or at least a phone call if there’s really no way to sit down face-to-face. This isn’t rocket science, friends. It’s just a little bit of common sense and intentionality.
It’s always quicker to send a text, but sometimes we forget just how much we lose when we only communicate with people through our devices. Maybe this meeting could have been an email, but in-person communication is significant. It gives context — there’s a lot of opportunity for clarification and expansion and not nearly as much room for miscommunication. And real life human interaction creates connection — simple eye contact and a smile can go a long, long way. So take a moment, think about how you often communicate with the people around you — your coworkers, your friends, your family. By all means, make good use of the digital resources we have access to in this day and age! But don’t forget as you go that convenient communication is only worth so much. And effective communication is worth a lot more.
