Non-verbal Communication
Technology has greatly impacted the way people communicate. With technology, it is now possible to communicate with people regardless of their geographical location. In the workplace, technology especially plays an important role in communication, given that most companies have offices in disparate locations where the employees in each of those locations would need to coordinate and communicate with each other.
Despite the great advancements that have been achieved in the field of communications and technology, one weakness of these types of communication tools is that they don’t allow for the effective exchange of non-verbal communication. Face-to-face communication is often not possible through most virtual communication tools such as email, chat, or SMS. These text-based communication tools do not allow for the individuals to communicate through facial expressions, gestures, body language, posture, proximity, eye gaze, touch, and appearance. However, to compensate for this lack of non-verbal communication in these text-based messaging tools, emoticons, language, and punctuations can be used to denote emotions and non-verbal cues. Sending or posting pictures online can also be another way of communicating non-verbal messages.
It should be noted, though, that technology is now trying to come up with ways to meet the need for non-verbal communication by providing for video capabilities. Now it is possible for people communicating online to see each other through web cams or through other video conferencing tools. Although the quality is still not as good as actual face-to-face communication, it at least allows the persons communicating to see each other as they communicate. In addition, voice chats are now possible, which, unlike text-based messaging tools, allow the people communicating to send and receive non-verbal cues through the tone and pitch of their voices and through pauses and hesitations. Some instant messaging systems also have avatars, which users can use to communicate non-verbally.
Indeed, technology is far from perfect and when it comes to communication, face-to-face communication is still the best way to ensure understanding between the persons involved. However, communication tools do provide a lot of convenience and with technological developments continuously being made, it can be expected that technology developers would continue their efforts to address the need for non-verbal communication.
