Whisper In My Ear. . .

“We are more and more into communications and less and less into communication.”

Studs Terkel

I’ve Been Thinking. . . no, I’ve almost been obsessing over the demise of face-to-face, verbal, heart-to-heart communication.

We’re LinkedIn, twittered, Facebooked, logged on, YouTubed, iPhoned, and even Googled but sometimes I’m not sure we’re really tuned in to what matters.

We now depend on Outlook rather than a conversation. The internet has replaced a spirited discussion over a cup of coffee. We email the person in the office next to us and go an entire day without exchanging words. Maybe we should declare an “email diet day.”

Studs Terkel is right. . . we’re communicating less and less.

As I pondered this blog’s message, I was reminded of a cute story I read years ago on communication. Timmy and his mother were at church. Just as the pastor began his sermon, Timmy shouted out, “Mommy, I have to go pee.”

Mother replied, “Shhhhh, we don’t use that word. We say ‘I have to whisper’.”

Timmy said, “Okay.”

The next week Timmy and his family went to church. He leaned over and said, “Daddy, I have to whisper.”

His dad replied, “Just whisper in my ear.”

Not a pretty picture. Even our simple communications are becoming complicated and misunderstood. We’re not all on the same page and that certainly can lead to some undesirable results.

Consider this, 300,000 users per day sign up for Twitter. Twitter recently disclosed these facts:

• Twitter now has 105,779,710 registered users (of course this number is
outdated as you read it).
• 180 million visitors come to the site every month.
• Twitter gets a total of 3 billion requests a day via its API.
• Twitter users are, in total, tweeting an average of 55 million tweets a day.

I sent that information to my son living in New York City. Ironically, he had an exaggerated (or maybe not) personal experience to illustrate my point. Here’s his message back to me:

“Thanks for sending this dad. It is an incredibly powerful tool. It's also very interesting to see how communication patterns are changing.

For example, Nikki and I were standing in line at Elizabeth & James, a boutique in the West Village, on Friday night. Being that the boutique's designers are Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, the majority line holder was female (10-35 years old). We were in line for nearly 2 hours, so needless to say people were on their phones (checking Facebook, email, Twitter, etc.) I tweeted from the line a number of times, including photos, # (hash tags) and @ (at replies).

The moment I found most interesting was when the two girls in front of me were both on their phones, while carrying on a conversation. Here was their back and forth...

Girl 1: "This line is crazy."
Girl 2: "Ya it is."
Girl 1: "I wish Mandy could see this line."
Girl 2: "I just posted a photo."
Girl 1: "Did you tweet it or status it?"
Girl 2: "Tweet."

It's crazy to me that people used to utilize email to avoid talking to an actual person. Now they "Tweet It" or "Status It" (Facebook Reference) to circumvent emailing. Not to mention that both Facebook and Twitter both utilize the GPS in your phone to include your location in each tweet or status update (spooky).”

I know, I know, roughly seventy-two percent of you are saying, “that is ridiculous, I’m not that addicted to technology.” Maybe not. Maybe.

What is getting in the way of your face-to-face, verbal communication with your spouse, friends, family, co-workers? What has replaced the emotion of words combined with body language, non-verbals, and tone of voice? Who is missing out on the unique opportunity to experience your personality? Certainly there are people anxious to “hear” your words of encouragement. It’s not possible to experience the warmth of your smile via an email.

Go talk to someone - - -

“85% of our joy, happiness in life comes from our interaction with others.”

Brian Tracy