In my last posting, I touched on the subject of why communication is hard. I’m going to evolve this a little bit in this post. If we can understand the mechanics behind the “But I already told them” – situation, we’ll be better equipped to deal with it.
Society today is constructed in multiple, complex structures, and information is everywhere, at all times. There is a saying that “a copy of the daily New York Times contains more information than the average 17th-century Englishman encountered in a lifetime.” In this New York Times-article, Shuessler writes about “too much information about information”. And it’s from 2011. Practically a lifetime ago.
We all live in an extremely information-intense world, at work as well as home. We all handle email, websites, intranets, chat forums, social media and much more.
Another thing to understand if you are to understand communication processes, is that there is a significant difference between interpersonal communication and mass-communication. I’ll give some examples to put this in context. The first one is pretty classic in communication: Two people are in a house, looking out of the window and seeing a tree. One of them is on ground floor, the other is on the top floor. When asked to describe what they see – one of them is going to describe a brown trunk. The other is going to describe a leafy green. Yet, they both still see a tree.
The second one is about my two sons. We travel a lot. When they were small, I was preparing them for a backpacker-trip in Asia. They were in the age when holes are super-exciting. Only, in Asia holes can be a lot more than exciting. In them, scorpions could dwell. And spiders, and other things – but you get my drift. My sons have very different personalities. My oldest son was a cautious little boy, while my younger son was the rascal, always out for next adventure.By telling them exactly how to behave around holes on the ground or in walls, not to put their hands there, not poking to see what’s in it because it could be very dangerous, was a mistake.
My oldest son got anxiety for the whole trip, fretting at nights before we went about all the insects and snakes that he suddenly pictured were just lurking around in Asia, waiting for his little hands to sink their fangs into. While my youngest son had a completely different take on it. His eyes momentarily lit up at my hefty warning – how exciting! So many new discoveries to make!
Well – lesson learned. On my part. Again. Can not give the same information in the same way to two very different receivers…
And this is still on an interpersonal level. Now, you’ll have to add hundreds, thousands, different personalities with different prior knowledge, needs and conditions. Add to that all the buzz around us, and the multitude of channels that are a challenge for senders and receivers alike to understand and make the best use of. Then, the question turns into an exclamation point “”That’s why communication is so hard”. But this doesn´t mean that we can’t do it. It means we need to consider how we do it.
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