James Potter — November 8, 2017 — November 8, 2017
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Back in May 2016, we wrote a blog Who’s afraid of the big bad human looking at the benefits of talking to someone face to face or over the phone, rather than via email or swapping messages via text or social media sites.
It seems that now in 2017 the ability to communicate with people in person is getting even harder for some people. Modern times dictate that we are all connected most of the day via devices be it a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop etc, and yes, we are as guilty of this as the next person.
But life outside the digital world is still really important and we should consider communicating face to face or over the phone an essential life skill that keeps us human.
Losing the ability to communicate with another human being “live” is surely a really bad thing. How can you learn empathy if you can’t see the person you are communicating with? When you talk to somebody face to face you can see their emotions and you can interpret their body language which you can’t do online.
What about trust? Yes, things like recommendations on LinkedIn mitigate risk, but can you really trust somebody you have only communicated with via digital devices?
How can you understand clearly the message that is intended in digital form? As we’ve discussed in our previous blog, we’ve all received emails that don’t read right, that don’t convey emotion or perhaps convey the wrong message or the wrong tone. If you talk to somebody “live” you can listen to their tone of voice and ask questions to get instant responses if something isn’t clear rather than stewing over an email that you think is offensive/unclear/boring.
How many times have you sat at your desk waiting and waiting for a response to an email that you felt was important enough to warrant an immediate response? Probably lots of times. Why didn’t you pick up the phone and call the person you wanted a response to? You could have received an immediate reply!
An interesting statistic we came across recently is that the average person can talk at 150-180 words a minute, but can only type/text as 30-40 words a minute, so surely talking to someone “live” is much better, faster and efficient!
So, whilst we wholeheartedly feel that LinkedIn is an essential tool in today’s modern world and a great starting point to initiate new relationships with people and to communicate with them, actually talking to people “live” is also an essential part of life and surely a necessity to build a strong, trusting, long-lasting relationship.
What do you think?
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