In this age of change, there are more and more media available for communication. Nevertheless, misunderstandings about this are not decreasing, but rather increasing. Why is this the case? We believe that too much emphasis is placed on content in communication.
The challenge in the 21st century is not to obtain information, but to filter out the right information. Today, we communicate almost constantly and at a rapid pace. Via email and WhatsApp, social media channels, and telephone. If we don't want to drown in the flood of information, we must learn to distinguish between what is important and what is unimportant. But it is not content alone that determines what is important. We need empathy to assess the significance of the content in context and for our communication partners.
Empathy in digital communication
In fact, digitalization has led to a decline in our capacity for empathy. Empathy must be cultivated. We need to experience our counterparts in order to learn what facial expressions, gestures, or intonation can reveal about a person. This is how we gain the ability to see the world through someone else's eyes. Whereas opportunities for training used to be plentiful, they have become rare today. People communicate less face to face and more frequently via a medium. This means that there are no indicators for recognizing emotional reactions, i.e., for assessing and controlling the emotional receptivity of our counterparts.
The link between the use of digital communication tools and empathy has also been proven in scientific studies. For example, adolescents develop less empathy for other people the more time they spend with digital media every day. It is not a question of demonizing digitalization. It brings many advantages. Nevertheless, we should consider its downsides and strive to communicate successfully even under these new conditions.
What characterizes digital communication?
The following factors in digital communication can have a negative effect on the emotional receptivity of both communication partners:
- The communication partners are not physically present.
- Communication often takes place in writing.
- More information is processed in shorter periods of time.
- Communication increasingly takes place between strangers or remains anonymous.
The communication partners are not physically present.
Depending on whether communication takes place in writing, via audio or video transmission, different channels of information are lost. Gestures, facial expressions, or tone of voice. All these signals are missing, making it difficult to gauge the other person's level of receptiveness or emotional response. At the same time, other perceptions are amplified: tone of voice plays a greater role in a telephone conversation than in a video transmission. The wording of an email carries more weight than in an audio transmission. This must be taken into account in order to avoid misunderstandings.
Communication often takes place in writing.
Written communication has the least amount of information about the emotional context. The spontaneous, nonverbal, and emotional nature of communication is lost. Emoticons are an attempt to compensate for this lack of information. Advantages of written communication: It eliminates perception filters such as appearance or tone of voice and allows more time for a response.
More information in shorter periods of time
Digital communication leads to faster delivery of messages. You can reach a friend in the US within seconds. At the same time, the amount of information has increased. As a result, texts are read and written more quickly. Content is viewed more superficially. This leads to a lack of depth in communication. Misunderstandings do not automatically decrease despite the archiving of messages. At the same time, expectations regarding response times to messages are increasing.
Communication often takes place between strangers or remains anonymous.
Initially, digital communication in chats and forums served as a means of anonymous exchange between strangers. Today, dialogue with acquaintances tends to be more prominent. Nevertheless, anonymity continues to influence digital communication in many cases. Websites and social media break down social inhibitions, barriers, and controls. This leads to greater openness, honesty, and friendliness, but also hostility and antisocial behavior.
Requirements for successful communication
Digital communication of the future will therefore face three challenges:
Success factor "Speed":
Although digitization initially slowed down communication due to the asynchronous nature of emails, the advent of chats and instant messages has changed this again. This is also reflected in changes in email behavior. Wording has become more concise and informal. In some cases, only the subject line is used. Audio messages have led to a further acceleration. Communication is only considered successful if it is fast and efficient.
Success factor "Intensity":
Since facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice are often lost, digitization has a negative effect here. The willingness to cooperate is demonstrably highest when speaking face to face. It decreases when communicating via video, telephone, or text. To compensate, emoticons, sound words (*argh*), and action words (*wink*) are used in written communication. These forms of expression can never replace facial expressions and gestures, but they do provide clues about emotional states. The special feature compared to offline communication is that users need to be aware of their actions and how they present themselves. Sending photos and videos is also a compensation strategy to increase emotionality.
Success factor "transparency":
Transparency counteracts the increased likelihood of misunderstandings. With emails, for example, it can be difficult to tell whether the communication partner is currently available or whether they have received and read the information. To compensate for this, instant messaging can be used to show whether the communication partner is currently online. Nevertheless, technical accessibility should never be equated with social accessibility.
Conclusion
The examples have shown various ways of meeting the requirements for digital communication. The key to success is how well we manage to compensate for the disadvantages of digital channels in terms of emotional receptivity. If we manage to be emotionally receptive ourselves and to create emotional receptivity in our counterpart, digital communication channels can be an asset.
Your team at the Grundl Leadership Institute
