Communication at It's Finest!

I've been reading this book called "Blink." It's about the mind and the adaptive unconscious. Which is the part of the mind that gives you hunches and gives that "somethings just not right" feeling when you don't know what it is. And it's about how we can know someone's personality within just a few minutes of talking to them. (I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that but that's why I'm reading the book.)

Beside the point of adaptive unconscious, the book said (and I've been searching all morning for the exact numbers, but I forgot to highlight it and I can't find it in the book. I know that I read it though, so take my word that these are the rough estimates of what I remember) that 55% of all communication is in the intonation of the voice: the tone and coloration of what and how you say things. 35%  percent of all communication is from body language: how we use our hands and sway our bodies and shuffle our feet and drift our eyes.  But only 10% of all communication is in the actual words that we use. 

That almost makes sense to me.

 I spent some time in other countries and it's amazing how much I can communicate with someone that doesn't speak my language. 

But it makes me wonder why we spend so much of our time communicating through texts and internet. Just notice how we try to put emotion into our writing with smileys and lots of exclamation points. The world knows that it can't communicate very well through just text alone, so it's trying to put emotion in our writing. I understand that it's hard to keep up with friends that are far away, but thank God for phones! With the phone you get to communicate 45% of what you actually are trying to portray. You can't actually have any sort of "real" relationship through words alone. I mean that's just my personal opinion, but I think we put way to much time into communicating with our friends through cyber world. 

Let's begin to actually take the time to call someone. Or go get lunch with someone. Or grab some coffee with someone. Let's stop trying to define ourselves with how many friends we have on myspace and facebook. Because, let's be real, we can't honestly have 292 (that's the number of friends I have, so I'm talking to me as much as I am talking to whoever has the misfortune to stumble across this blog)  meaningful friendships. Community is about relationships, and "real" relationships at that. And that's what being a true Christian is about. Building community with those around you, and loving them. Not just knowing there name and sending a "hey what's up?" every couple of weeks. It's actually caring for them, and wanting to get to know their heart.

Now here's the disclaimer: I'm not saying that the only good way to communicate is in person. There is efficiency in texts and networking online. But that's just it. Friendships aren't about being efficient. And I'm not saying never to text and/or to get rid of your facebook/myspace, because God knows I text way to much and spend way to much time on the internet. So maybe this blog is really for me, and you've got it all together.... but maybe it's no about "you" and "me".... maybe it's about "us."

Peace and Love,

Lance