Is talking the same as communicating?

The assistant gets called in to the managers office and is told: "I don't think we're communicating

here because.............." . The husband complains to his wife: "I don't know what's going on with Rudy, he never communicates with me".  The student loves art classes because she feels that the art teacher is a really good communicator. What does the word "communication" mean? Well, it comes from the latin word communis which means "to share". Basically it means an activity of conveying information. We do it through exchanging thoughts, information, messages either through the written or spoken word, how we behave, body language and signals, and it requires a sender and a receiver.

What we often tend to forget is that what the sender sends as a message will be interpreted by the receiver, the receiver then applies their meaning to the message. It's not what the message does to the receiver, but what the receiver does with the message, that determines how successfully it was communicated.

Thanks to technology we now have a vast array of methods of communicating, but more and more there seem to be signs of side effects. Every mechanical/electronic medium we use to keep in touch with each other, somehow also manages to keep us apart. Why get face-to-face when its so much easier to just email, text, twit, facebook, chat etc.? (We seem to be supplied with more and more ways of staying away from one another. We can do all our sports in the living room, travel the world, go to concerts, watch movies, do our shopping etc.)

If we equate communication with data-transfer, then using "i-thingys" may seem the obvious way to go, but what about sharing the "meaning" of the message? Does speed and immediacy always necessarily rank higher than personal face-to-face communication?

For instance, have you ever found yourself wandering around mega stores confused and bewildered and wishing for a "real" person to talk to, to ask where you can find that item you're looking for?

Have you ever been in a telephone queue waiting, hoping for a "real" person to speak with? Have you ever found yourself wondering about an sms, email your friend/partner sent you, and what they really meant?

Have you had people asking you the same question? How would you prefer being told really good or bad news, in person or via an "i-thingy"?

Can we keep our sense of belonging in/to a community when we spend more time with machines/devices than with people? Being part of a community encourages us to be aware of others, to feel a sense of responsibility, a connection to something more than ourselves, so maybe we need to be careful that our love affair with the "i-thingys" doesn't perpetuate fragmentation of the community and isolation of the individual.

How will our patience with others be affected when we have become accustomed to communication taking place at warp speed? The more fantastic and speedy the non-personal media of communication become, is there not a temptation for us to isolate ourselves more and more from "real" communities, invest less in getting to "know" people or maintaining existing close personal relationships?

Is machine-based information transfer really equal to face-to-face communication?

Face-to-face communication is not a single simple event, it is often quite slow, it is a process of sharing with another human being, it is the development of a relationship, and warp speed does not apply.

Language is a system of symbols which we use to express meaning. Meaning is not in the language itself, but in the minds of those using language to share their ideas. Does a frog know its a frog?

It may seem as if meaning is in the words themselves if we have learned to use particular symbols to express particular ideas or meanings, but the word is empty so to speak, until we attach our meaning to it. We may both say "the sky is blue" but your blue and my blue is most probably very different. The fact that we may agree that the sky IS blue is due to us both having learned to use those particular symbols to express particular ideas and/or meanings. On an individual level, we still interpret what "blue" means to us.

It is not the message(the words used) that we are communicating which determines how successful we are, but rather what meaning (interpretation of words )the receiver attaches to the message, that determines the outcome of the communication. Did we understand each other?

Collins Thesaurus defines to communicate: to talk, speak, correspond, make contact, report, transmit, publish, proclaim, convey, etc. and communication: conversation, correspondence, intercourse, link, connection, relations, etc.

Talking can be the same as communicating, maybe we just need to be cautious so we don't transmit rather than talk, report rather than converse, proclaim rather than speak with...

Whether we call it communicating or talking, hopefully it always includes the possibility for a mutual understanding and a good relationship between the sender and the receiver.

 

"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true". (Charles Dickens)

 

"To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others". (Tony Robbins)

 

"Communication is two-sided - vital and profound communication makes demands also on those who are to receive it... demands in the sense of concentration, of genuine effort to receive what is being communicated". (Roger Sessions)