codyg1985’s Think Tank

The internet is a wonderful tool.  This tool can be used for many things, including news, research, self-expression, and communication.  Communication.  It is the pillar of human correspondence.  A lack of it can cause any relationship, business arrangement, or project to fail faster and harder than the fighting Irish.  The internet can be used to communicate, but the message can be lost in translation, and often portions of the message can be ignored or misinterpreted altogether.

When talking on the phone, the participants of the conversation can pick up on verbal cues that can add more meaning to a message.  In person, even more of the message comes out through nonverbal cues, which makes up 93 percent of your entire message.  All of that 93 percent is lost when on the phone, and a portion of that remaining 7 percent is lost when communication is made through text messages, instant messages, e-mail, and other text forms of communication.  There is no way to get my entire message from what I say here just by what is on this page, regardless of how hard I try to convey that message.

In a text-based dialog, for example, how easy would it be for you to tell if I am being sarcastic?  How difficult would it be if you did not know me at all?  A lack of prior knowledge of a person can mean that a message can be grossly misinterpreted.  Talking on the phone removes some of that because the tone of voice can be a cue as to if I was being sarcastic, but that is still only 7 percent of the message.  The other 93 percent of the message is still sitting on the other end of the line, never to reach the other person.

Another disadvantage of a text-based dialog is that bits and pieces of a message can be ignored.  Someone asking you a question you don’t want to answer?  Then you just don’t answer it.  No matter how many times someone asks a question, it can be ignored time and time again by that other person.  The entire message consists of bits that you don’t want to reply to?  Then you ignore the message. That is the way of life with internet communication, and often it can be frustrating to get ideas across.

With the disadvantages of text-based communication evident, it is convenient and faster to send a message over the internet or a text message than it is to call someone or meet up with someone. The message can be of any length.  The message can be sent to multiple people.  If it were not for the internet, it would not be possible for many people to read this at once; I would have to distribute this by hand to everyone that I would want to read it, and those people would have to do likewise in order to spread the word.  The message can be combined with multimedia, such as pictures, music, or video, which can make discussion easier.  This is more difficult to accomplish with a phone call or a meeting.  The internet is more ubiquitous than ever, and as such, it is more likely to find a person’s email address, Facebook profile, and/or blog, and for the reasons listed above, it is easier to communicate through the medium that is the internet.

The internet has allowed people from across the planet to communicate with the blink of an eye, and it has allowed long-lost friends to be reunited.  However, sole reliance upon this form of communication is usually not enough to sustain a working relationship with the other person.  No matter what the relationship is based upon, face-to-face meetings and phone calls are still a requirement.