Talking with Words

Several of my courses this semester are focusing on communication. As someone who was raised by two therapists, I tend to feel that I am very successful in communicating and rarely struggle to get my points across or to pick up on what others are saying. In class, we discussed a few ways to improve verbal communication. These included using "I" language, respecting what others say about their thoughts and feelings, striving for accuracy and clarity, and qualifying language. For Soc 300 (Preceptorship in Sociology), I read the book "The Four Agreements," which in my opinion is just several suggestions to make life a bit easier. One of the agreements is to be "impeccable with your word," which I believe is essentially the same as striving for accuracy and clarity and incorporates respecting others.
To be impeccable with one's word, one must speak the truth while being mindful of the truth of others, and use language that will not be regrettable or misconstrued. In trying to implement this agreement into my life, I noticed myself becoming considerably quieter. It's interesting that on occasion the best way to improve communication is to communicate less through words, but rather through a lack of them. This returns to another concept that we learned in class; we communicate much more through unconscious gestures and tone of voice than through words. If we can be aware of and harness our nonverbal communication, imagine the improved accuracy and clarity that could be achieved.
With advances in technology, we are presented with essentially hundreds of new ways to misconstrue our messages. I, and most of my friends, am constantly using social media such Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Yik Yak, Tinder, etc. While these forms of communication provide many more ways for us to transmit our messages, it simultaneously allows us to send many more messages to many more people than we used to have the power to do. Lots of times, what we try to say is not received with clarity on the other end. For example, on Monday night after the "riots" on campus I posted an article written by a Penn State graduate. The article was essentially a reminder from the outside world that Penn State still has an incredibly tainted reputation and that though we have regained what were perhaps oversteps in punishment, we have not somehow made up for the embarrassing events that happened here. We should be grateful that the students are no longer being punished, but the school still has a long way to go (as does football culture) before we can come close to this issue being over. People commented on my post assuming that I was anti-Penn State or anti-football, which is absolutely not the case. I didn't even write anything along with the link, I just shared it. This demonstrates the way in which our messages may not be received the way we would like them to. Had I explained the article in person, I'm not quite sure people would have reacted the same way. It's difficult to deny that we still have a long way to go.
Presenting the correct message will always be a challenge, but it is one that becomes easier as we become more aware of the ways in which people receive our language, actions and nonverbal movements. It's important to keep in mind that what we say on Snapchat will be understood very differently from what we say in an e-mail or in person.