I love texting and being able to shoot off an email late at night when it’s convenient for me, so I am truly not one of those anti-technology people  My iphone is almost always with me.  But as a person who also spends a lot of time analysing and working with communication, I have observed some real consequences that you might want to think about before you hit send.

Only 7% of human communication is through the content or words of our message, according to UCLA researcher Professor Albert Mehrabian.  The majority of communication is through sight and sound:  58% through body language and 35% through vocal tone, pitch, and emphasis.  Think about any sentence you can utter.  By using a smile or a scowl, a friendly tone or a sarcastic one, you can completely change the meaning.  This being the case, it is no wonder how often miscommunications happen with texts or emails.  It is truly a terrible way to create understanding and resolve an issue or settle a dispute.

In fact, I find that people often use these forms of communicating to, maybe without even realizing it, avoid resolution, or at least sabotage it.   By using email, we often say things we wouldn’t say face to face.  We don’t have to be in the presence of the person and deal with the response. We can protect ourselves from the other person’s distress, whether it’s anger, hurt, or strain in their voice.  When we type and send, we remain in control of the conversation.  While it feels powerful, it can also be a form of manipulation, especially if you don’t offer a follow up of a phone conversation or in person meeting to attend the other person’s point of view.

I often wonder if this is one of the factors contributing to our countries divide and people’s increasing sense of isolation.  When we can “say” things without consequence, limit actual dialog, and “share” a rant on facebook, we have no chance of finding common ground or creating understanding or at least connection.  In fact, when we express our anger by email without a follow up of conversation, it might feel good in the moment to tell someone off, but in reality, we leave ourselves in a place of victimhood.   It makes sense that over time a compounding of this victimhood could slowly erode our sense of connectedness and our capacity for intimacy and mutuality.  It takes courage to tell someone how you feel, especially when you are hurting.  But to do so in a vacuum robs you both of the profound grace and healing that reconciliation can create.  There is no substitute for hearing the words “sorry” and feeling arms around you in an embrace.

On the other hand, sending a text is so easy, it can create a false sense of connection and intimacy.  A woman I worked with was falling in love with a man she thought was so caring.  He texted her early each day to say good morning and throughout her day to say he was thinking of her.  But the truth was, when it came time to showing up for her when she needed help, a text was all he had to offer.  And he was offering it to more than just her, she came to find out!

I know that I personally have become lazy.  I use technology too often in place of conversation.  And in some cases, emails and texts do provide a great way to stay in touch and keep a connection with people I rarely can see, especially when we live in different parts of the country or world.  A clever phrase or aptly chosen emoji can bring a lot of humor into my day.  But we should all remind ourselves, that for anything nuanced, complex, or difficult to say, 7% is not using our full tool box for effective communication.  And if we find that we don’t want to say something in person, just as Thumper reminds us, we might best not say anything at all.