A few days ago I got a FaceTime call from my 14 month grandson (actually his mom placed the call). It was great to interact with him for a minute or so, see him recognize my face, point at me, respond to me, especially when he raised both hands overhead when I said “Touchdown Irish!”
It made me think about how technology is changing the way we live and work. We truly live in a brave new world. But is that always good?
How many of us have substituted Skype or Zoom for a face-to-face interaction? Or email, text, or Twitter for a phone call? I’m sure the answer is that most of us have. Why? In my mind the primary answer is “efficiency”. When we use a product such as Skype or Zoom, we eliminate the travel time. Email, text, or Twitter, allow us to kind of multitask. We know from all the research that multitasking while on phone call is a bad idea. With electronic or social media we can communicate with multiple people, on multiple topics, almost simultaneously. Super efficient, right? Allows us to do more than if we focus on a single task, correct?
I believe we are doing ourselves a disservice if we forgo face-to-face communication for other forms. While I do think we can, and should, “get the ball rolling” via these methods, to think they can serve us through a complete communication process is, in my opinion, a huge mistake. There was a great commercial many years ago (1990 actually) from United Airlines (no snickering, please), where a boss assembled his team to share they had lost a customer. Then he handed out tickets (that right there tells you hold old the commercial is) to his staff for them to fly and see their customers. When asked what he was going to do, he said “To visit that old friend who fired us this morning.” Check it out here.
When I think about communication, the following quotes come to mind (among many):
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George Bernard Shaw: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
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Karl Popper: “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.”
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And finally, Judi Murphy (PR Pro and Marketing Strategist), said “If your marketing message can be misunderstood, it will be. If it can’t possibly be misunderstood, somebody will still misunderstand it.”
All the above quotes are true and have manifested themselves many times in my life. How can we expect that non-direct interactions (email, text, Twitter, etc.) have a chance of being truly understood if we know that direct communication results in misunderstanding? And with respect to video conferencing options like Zoom, Skype, and others, we still miss the three dimensional perspective of body language that can tell much more than words, or even facial expressions. We also miss the simple acts of shaking hands, breaking bread, and that unique bond that is created when people are in the same room.
Some will call me old fashioned, out of touch with the real world. To those I say, great. Keep thinking that way. I’ll be the guy with my feet up, enjoying a cold beverage at the finish line when you finally cross, exhausted.
So while all these “new” communication methods have their place; people, especially if you’re in a business to business role, who ignore face-to-face interaction will be left in the dust by those of us that don’t. Oh yes, while it’s very cool, I will never allow FaceTime to replace spending time with my grandson.
