Effects of Miscommunication

Are you partaking in casual conversation in your text message or are you MAKING A POINT?!  This week we discussed the Feedback Loop.  It was really interesting to understand how thoughts and feelings are portrayed and received/interpreted.  The Feedback Loop describes the communication process in which one person expresses or says something is with meaning, is then aided by or through the media to be decoded through interpretation by the listener, and finally, the listener reacts with their thoughts and feelings in regards to the topic.  The media (words, tones, or non-verbal cues) can help us decipher what the speaker is actually trying to say.  As the listener, we combine the words with the tone in which the words were said or with non-verbal cues, such as eye rolling or a smiling.  If the speaker has a lot on their mind and is absentmindedly partaking in the conversation, the media cues they use may be in reaction to what is on their mind or what they are talking about.  For instance, the speaker just got off the phone after a frustrating phone conversation in which their voice was loud.  If the speaker says something to the listener right after, his tone may still match that from the heated argument instead of being in reference to the new interaction with the listener.  Misinterpreting thoughts or feelings from someone is especially easy to do through some form of text communication, whether it is text messages, Facebook, email, etc.  If the sender of the message adds too many exclamation marks, the reader may think the sender was portraying anger or harsh emotions.  If the sender said, "I thought you said you vacuumed!!!!!!" the reader may be quite appalled and may even snap back with a rude comment.  But if the sender said, "I thought you vacuumed."  The reader might be more apt to replying in a kind manner that he was going to, but got stuck at campus longer than anticipated, and perhaps they he will get to it when he gets home.  In more serious scenarios, things can escalate real quickly if the sender and the reader are not careful to encode or decode the messages effectively.  It is important, as communication via text becomes increasingly popular, that the messages sent and received are taken with precaution.  What could easily be interpreted as someone smiling during a conversation face-to-face, but a smiley face emoticon that is sent through a text message instead can be mistaken as someone flirting.  If a third party then sees that message, they could misinterpret how it was meant and all sorts of miscommunication problems come into play.  Text communication can be beneficial to a relationship, friendship, etc. or it can be severely damaging.  I loved the quote that was shared in the class by Harold B. Lee, "[w]e should communicate so clearly, not only that we can be understood, but that we can not be misunderstood".  I think it is important to strive to live by this quote every time we are involved in text communications because it can prevent a lot of unnecessary tensions/problems or damaging miscommunication.