| Commentary and Philosophy Non-Fiction posted October 23, 2024 |
  |
Misunderstandings and Fear in Online Communications
The Cult of Paranoia
by Patrick Bernardy
Do you like me? Did you like me last week? Will you like me next week? Can I believe you? Should I believe you?
Do I even like you?
Do you care about my real problems? Do I care about yours?
Are you real to me, or just a means to an end—someone to populate my online world, review my posts?
Do I only exist for you as it pertains to what I do for you?
Who are you, really? Does it even matter?
And so goes the stream of questions that initiate all of us into the Cult of Paranoia. There is only one qualification for cult membership: you have to care what the others in your online communities think about you. If you don't, feel free to continue reading this article as an outsider. If, however, you do care what opinion others have about you and how you can influence that opinion, continue reading. I think you may find for yourself a new perspective concerning how you communicate, and perhaps more importantly, how you interpret the communication of others.
We are all communicators and the targets of communications, senders and receivers. Handling both is vital to existing comfortably within a community. I don't have all the answers, either, for I am just as capable of misreading you and helping you misread me as anyone. But as I pondered, researched, compiled, and wrote this essay, I discovered a lot about myself and how I handle my own communications.
In the end, I realized that we're all in the same boat; we all drink from the same chalice at the altar of Paranoia.
What follows are some ideas as to why this is so and some advice that you might find helpful in both of your obligatory roles as a participating member of your online communities.
_____________________________________________________
In his 1890 novel The Light Has Failed, British imperialist Rudyard Kipling wrote: "We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.” We communicate by language, but the very nuance that gives language its great capacity for precise meaning and unique expression is the same quality that makes it so easy to misinterpret. In her informative and excellent essay entitled "Misunderstandings," Heidi Burgess reveals the importance of context, tone of voice, and other sensory cues in deciphering someone's meaning:
"The boss's words, 'Hey, I noticed you were taking an especially long break this morning,' could be interpreted as an attack if she or he said that in a disapproving tone, while the comment might be seen as a minor reminder about office rules if it was said in a friendly way. If the employee has a health problem that sometimes requires long breaks, the comment might have even been a friendly inquiry about what was happening and whether the employee needed any help. Here, tone of voice as well as situational and relationship factors would influence the interpretation of the message."
This scenario provides three very believable and totally different meanings for the boss's statement. How do we as readers interpret her or his true meaning without tone of voice, syntax inflections, body language, and relationship contexts?
The answer is that we can't. We are not given enough information. And that is where misunderstandings begin in our online communication, for it's almost exclusively textual in format.
The human brain is wired to complete patterns. The human animal is compelled to seek answers and draw conclusions in an effort to impose order on his or her environment. The combination of these two facts lead each of us to make judgments of others without sufficient information.
How many of you derive your own conclusions if someone doesn't answer a message or review in a reasonable time frame? The conclusion is based on a number of factors that you process both rationally as well as emotionally. They include how you feel about the person, his or her past track record in answering emails, the degree of friendship you share with him or her, the timeliness of the communication, and whether or not you know this person's real-life circumstances. Now, whether or not you are proven completely wrong about why this person took so long to answer, the damage to your opinion of him or her has already been done, for your conclusion has shifted your perception.
And even worse is that you have joined the Cult of Paranoia yourself.
By feeding into this cycle of drawing false and improper conclusions about others, you begin to worry that others do the same to you. This, by far, is the most toxic brand the Cult stamps on its initiates. Soon, your paranoia begins to affect your communications with others in such a way that you are always overthinking and second-guessing meanings and statements. Eventually, this leads to neurotic behavior that dulls the charms and douses the benefits of being a member of your online community.
“In our evolution," wrote British life coach and author Rasheed Ogunlaru, "language has been the greatest single contributor to our understanding and misunderstanding.” Communication is such a complex action when every human advantage is employed. It becomes treacherous when we are forced to send a message without body language, context, or vocalization.
In most online communities, we are denied all three of those advantages. And the Cult is there, embracing new members and poisoning the electronic, far-flung gatherings we want so much to thrive.
We've seen and experienced how difficult it is to communicate without body language, tone of voice, and circumstantial context. But why? Surely these are not the only elements crucial to being understood and understanding another.
Communication between two people is made up of so many critical components that removing only a few seriously hinders its odds of success.
As I was contemplating the implications of online communication, I was reminded of the "Messenger," or "Telephone," game we've all played at one time or another, usually in grade school. The teacher starts at one end of the class and relays a short message to a student, something like:
"Tomorrow's sky will be cloudy,
and it will snow while we're at school."
By the time the message gets to the last student, the message that's announced to the class is something like:
"It's going to snow tonight,
and we're going to get out of school tomorrow."
The first statement made by the teacher is a mild, innocuous prediction. As it moves from student to student, though, it becomes more and more loaded with meaning. It morphs from a statement into a conclusion, because at each retelling, a different mind is used to interpret and critically analyze its implications. This behavior of the human mind has always made language communication imperfect.
_____________________________________________________
Sociologists have been trying for many years now to get a handle on the dynamics of online communities. A big part of sociology is the study of communication within a society—its methods, impact, and consequences. One of the most influential facts of online communication is that we lose so many essential elements of our communication capability. Social appearance preparation—a complicated and interconnected system of sensory components carefully evolved and adapted for a face-to-face society—is completely irrelevant.
These aspects of our identity in an online community either completely vanish or can be fabricated or hidden to such an extent that it amounts to the same thing.
ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL APPEARANCE PREPARATION
- Body Language: facial expressions, hand movements, postures, and head positions
- Clothing: how we dress and style our hair, and how it conforms to societal norms
- Scent: how we smell, and the reaction that scent engages in others
- Body Features: body shape, prominent body curves
- Hygenic Features: configuration and cleanliness of teeth, cleanliness of hair and fingernails
- Conversational Intelligence: correct/incorrect pronunciation and articulation, listening skills, empathy, charm
- Vocal Peculiarities: the timbre of our voice, the volume of our speech, tonal inflection, and dialectical accent
So, what are we left to communicate with? Our intellect, our writing ability, our work ethic, our ability and desire to manage time, and our reason. That's a small bag of tricks in which to avoid misunderstandings, to be sure. Is it any wonder that we are all acolytes in the Cult of Paranoia?
One of the main benefits of face-to-face communication is that there is so much more data being fed to you concerning a person's perspective and circumstances.
Let's say you are in my age-bracket, 50-ish, and you cross paths with a teenager in a park. In that instant of recognition, you have a world of data available to you. Your new acquaintance has a candy-apple-red mohawk, several facial piercings, a right arm covered in tattoos, a worn skateboard in his left hand, a skull ring on the index finger of his right hand, and is wearing a sleeveless muscle shirt that reads: "Your World Sucks."
Deciding immediately that this young person will offer you nothing but annoyance, you roll your eyes and move past him. The kid probably slams his skateboard down and skates away, reaffirming his dedication to those timeless teenage mantras, "I hate old people," and "They'll never understand."
Both you and the teenager exchanged sensory data and made a judgment of each other. In essence, you did exactly what we all do every day in online communities, but with the opposite communication advantages. You used only sensory data without considering intellect, communication ability, and information deduction through conversation feedback.
This situation illustrates our difficulties by painting the negative space of the concept.
Now, just for fun, let's run that scenario back and play it again, but this time, you say to the teenager: "The world does suck sometimes, doesn't it?"
He laughs and nods.
You notice the "Nightwish" pendant around his neck, a detail you would have missed if you had not turned toward him for an answer. Your closer look at his adornments seems like serendipity, for you are a monster Nightwish fan yourself.
And so begins an improbable conversation. His eyes are bright and observant and meet your gaze with confidence, his posture is straight and respectful, he listens while you speak, and answers your question in a quiet, intelligent, and thorough manner. The two of you have almost nothing in common at first blush, but discover that you are both diehard Nightwish fans. You inform him that you had a skateboard when you were in middle school. You admit everyone called you a poseur; he laughs and shows you a rail-slide he just perfected. You're impressed. You discover that his grandmother was a friend of your mother's; they used to work together. The conversation lasts an hour. You're sorry for it to end.
In this scenario, the person's perspective and circumstances were the defining trait that you enjoyed about them. And you almost missed them altogether because of communication interference and snap judgments. You misinterpreted signals or chose to focus on data that was irrelevant.
How often do we do this to others we come in contact with in our online communities? How often do we misunderstand? No wonder we're all so paranoid about being misunderstood. It's easier for people to fill in the blanks with false information than to delay judgment until the actual details are available. Sometimes, they never come at all, and the human mind will always strive to complete an incomplete image. We'll always settle on a conclusion, even if we have to make one up.
_____________________________________________________
In every instance of online communication, there is a sender and a receiver of the message. These are integral aspects, for there cannot be a message without either of them. And we, as members of an online community, play both roles at various times. What can we do to make sure that we are doing an adequate job at both?
If you're the sender:
Be Clear. When sending a communication to another person online, say exactly what you want to say and no more. This is much easier said than done. Edit yourself. If you are waffling about whether you should include a sentence or word choice because it may be taken wrong, leave it out. If you see its ambiguity, many others will too. Understand that "It's time to eat, Grandma" has a much different meaning if the comma is left out. Avoid ambiguity by being precise with your language. Acknowledge that the English language and syntax is set up for all kinds of wonderful double entendre, as in these examples:
~Mercutio, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "Tis no less [a good day], I tell you; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon." I wasn't around London during the Elizabethan Golden Age, but I daresay this loaded line would have gotten quite a few chuckles from the audience. (Did I just write "loaded line?")
~The day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, a female news anchor turned to the weatherman on air and asked: "So Bob, where's that eight inches you promised me last night?" The broadcast was diverted immediately, and the weatherman and half the camera crew laughed the anchor right into a tearful resignation.
~A popular song from the 1970's by The Bellamy Brothers is called "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?" So, does the singer want his subject to hold her body against him physically, or is he asking if she'd mind if he paid her a compliment? Now, this is an extremely clever use of language in a song, but when these types of ambiguous sentences appear in your online communications, the receiver is left confused by what you mean.
~Here are some purported headlines from around the world. I would imagine that both writer and editor are ashamed of their inability to communicate a clear message to their readership:
*Include Your Children When Baking Cookies
*Gangsters Get Nine Months in Violin Case
*Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
*Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
*Miners Refuse to Work After Death
*Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
*Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter
*Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
*Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
*New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
*Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space
*Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Anticipate Reaction. Remember what you know about whom you are sending your message to, and use that information to craft communication tailored just for them. If you are sending a message to your best friend in the community, keep consistent so that he or she does not think that your relationship has changed due to some unknown event or unintended communication. If you are sending a message to someone with whom you have never communicated before, understand that this will be your chance to make a good first impression. If you are responding to a question or request, remember that the receiver has a certain level of anticipation for your answer, and answer with tact and diplomacy. If you are declining a request, explain your reasons for doing so. If you are excited to be included in something, say so. Imagine the disposition of the member on the other side of your message, and match it with your tone and words.
Use Emojis. These handy shortcuts to body language have been around for as long as people have been communicating with each other via text. They give you back some of your capability to express yourself non-verbally. (On FanStory, emojis are there for you in every channel other than reviewing. Just right-click in the text field, select "emoji," and choose one!)
Reread, Proofread, Reword. You should always reread your emails, messages, contest listings, forum posts, general replies, and reviews before sending them away for judgment. You should edit all grammatical errors or errors in syntax and usage. You should reword any word or phrase that is unclear or ambiguous. There isn't much else to say about these three things. Just do them. I'm not saying that every email or post has to always be perfect. I try as hard as I possibly can every single time, and I still make errors. But you know if you click "send" without rereading, proofreading, and rewording. If you do, you are lazy and/or incompetent, and your error-riddled emails and incomprehensible reviews offer sacrificial fodder to the Cult of Paranoia. Not to mention damage your image as a quality artist.
If you're the receiver:
Offer the Benefit of the Doubt. One of the greatest relationship skills we can all improve upon is the ability to think the best of people. Imagine how many arguments, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings could be avoided if we could just assume the best about a person and wait for damning evidence of wrongdoing. But as I mentioned above, human brains insist on completing patterns, and the human animal enjoys drawing conclusions. Because of these facts, it is very easy to start down a wrong path with someone and just keep going. Try this. Go back into your messages, reviews, or replies and find one from someone you used to feel cold about but have since grown close to. Reread that email now from your new perspective. Does it seem more genuine and friendly? Have the messages that you saw hidden between the lines before faded?
Be Empathetic. In a PBS interview, Kentucky author Barbara Kingsolver called empathy "the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own." With only a few very rare exceptions, people are not sitting in front of their computers or phones thinking of ways to make your life miserable. They have their own feelings with which to deal and their own lives to manage. When receiving a message from someone, keep that message in its context, both as pertains to circumstances as well as time. A message, reply, or review sent at two o'clock in the morning after someone has been writing all day is going to be quite different than the ones you receive that were written during an initial morning coffee rush.
Reserve Judgment. Resist the urge to make up your mind about someone without actual facts concerning their context and circumstances. It is fair to judge a person based on his or her earned reputation, but always try to remember that you may not be privy to the reasons why someone isn't communicating well. It is hard not to be irritated with those who will sour your community or increase your workload. Just be sure you keep a backdoor of understanding, forgiveness, and compassion available for them if and when they apologize and explain their reasons.
_____________________________________________________
In your quest to deny the Cult of Paranoia, remember that it is your ability to reason that offers your greatest boon. Our reason is what helps us interpret the world around us, allowing us to make judgments that are fair, balanced, and equitable. Our reason builds a reality for us that we can predict or else prepares us to face the unpredictable. It is our only protection from events beyond our control and the relentless fear of chaos.
Our reason constructs causeways to inner peace and psychological stability. But our reason has a host of enemies, and these merciless assailants are marshaled by our emotions. Like charismatic cult leaders, they interfere, thwart, delude, deceive, and poison our rationality.
Educational philosopher Robert Hutchins said it best: "This is a do-it-yourself test for paranoia: you know you've got it when you can't think of anything that's your fault."
If we apply our reason to every instance of communication we experience—whether it be as sender or receiver—we'll easily see how every message has more than one way it can be interpreted; in fact, it's often a bursting kaleidoscope of multifaceted nuance and connotation.
However, if you follow the points above, you can deny the Cult of Paranoia any power over you or over those with which you want to share a community.
Below are two images, visual expressions of the fact that you can never quite trust your perspective, for even in an image that does not change, there can forever be two opposing right answers.
British cartoonist William Ely Hill, Puck Magazine, 1915 Sky and Water I ~ M.C. Escher
Story of the Month contest entry
Do you like me? Did you like me last week? Will you like me next week? Can I believe you? Should I believe you?
Do I even like you?
Do you care about my real problems? Do I care about yours?
Are you real to me, or just a means to an end—someone to populate my online world, review my posts?
Do I only exist for you as it pertains to what I do for you?
Who are you, really? Does it even matter?
And so goes the stream of questions that initiate all of us into the Cult of Paranoia. There is only one qualification for cult membership: you have to care what the others in your online communities think about you. If you don't, feel free to continue reading this article as an outsider. If, however, you do care what opinion others have about you and how you can influence that opinion, continue reading. I think you may find for yourself a new perspective concerning how you communicate, and perhaps more importantly, how you interpret the communication of others.
We are all communicators and the targets of communications, senders and receivers. Handling both is vital to existing comfortably within a community. I don't have all the answers, either, for I am just as capable of misreading you and helping you misread me as anyone. But as I pondered, researched, compiled, and wrote this essay, I discovered a lot about myself and how I handle my own communications.
In the end, I realized that we're all in the same boat; we all drink from the same chalice at the altar of Paranoia.
What follows are some ideas as to why this is so and some advice that you might find helpful in both of your obligatory roles as a participating member of your online communities.
_____________________________________________________
In his 1890 novel The Light Has Failed, British imperialist Rudyard Kipling wrote: "We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.” We communicate by language, but the very nuance that gives language its great capacity for precise meaning and unique expression is the same quality that makes it so easy to misinterpret. In her informative and excellent essay entitled "Misunderstandings," Heidi Burgess reveals the importance of context, tone of voice, and other sensory cues in deciphering someone's meaning:
"The boss's words, 'Hey, I noticed you were taking an especially long break this morning,' could be interpreted as an attack if she or he said that in a disapproving tone, while the comment might be seen as a minor reminder about office rules if it was said in a friendly way. If the employee has a health problem that sometimes requires long breaks, the comment might have even been a friendly inquiry about what was happening and whether the employee needed any help. Here, tone of voice as well as situational and relationship factors would influence the interpretation of the message."
This scenario provides three very believable and totally different meanings for the boss's statement. How do we as readers interpret her or his true meaning without tone of voice, syntax inflections, body language, and relationship contexts?
The answer is that we can't. We are not given enough information. And that is where misunderstandings begin in our online communication, for it's almost exclusively textual in format.
The human brain is wired to complete patterns. The human animal is compelled to seek answers and draw conclusions in an effort to impose order on his or her environment. The combination of these two facts lead each of us to make judgments of others without sufficient information.
How many of you derive your own conclusions if someone doesn't answer a message or review in a reasonable time frame? The conclusion is based on a number of factors that you process both rationally as well as emotionally. They include how you feel about the person, his or her past track record in answering emails, the degree of friendship you share with him or her, the timeliness of the communication, and whether or not you know this person's real-life circumstances. Now, whether or not you are proven completely wrong about why this person took so long to answer, the damage to your opinion of him or her has already been done, for your conclusion has shifted your perception.
And even worse is that you have joined the Cult of Paranoia yourself.
By feeding into this cycle of drawing false and improper conclusions about others, you begin to worry that others do the same to you. This, by far, is the most toxic brand the Cult stamps on its initiates. Soon, your paranoia begins to affect your communications with others in such a way that you are always overthinking and second-guessing meanings and statements. Eventually, this leads to neurotic behavior that dulls the charms and douses the benefits of being a member of your online community.
“In our evolution," wrote British life coach and author Rasheed Ogunlaru, "language has been the greatest single contributor to our understanding and misunderstanding.” Communication is such a complex action when every human advantage is employed. It becomes treacherous when we are forced to send a message without body language, context, or vocalization.
In most online communities, we are denied all three of those advantages. And the Cult is there, embracing new members and poisoning the electronic, far-flung gatherings we want so much to thrive.
We've seen and experienced how difficult it is to communicate without body language, tone of voice, and circumstantial context. But why? Surely these are not the only elements crucial to being understood and understanding another.
Communication between two people is made up of so many critical components that removing only a few seriously hinders its odds of success.
As I was contemplating the implications of online communication, I was reminded of the "Messenger," or "Telephone," game we've all played at one time or another, usually in grade school. The teacher starts at one end of the class and relays a short message to a student, something like:
"Tomorrow's sky will be cloudy,
and it will snow while we're at school."
By the time the message gets to the last student, the message that's announced to the class is something like:
"It's going to snow tonight,
and we're going to get out of school tomorrow."
The first statement made by the teacher is a mild, innocuous prediction. As it moves from student to student, though, it becomes more and more loaded with meaning. It morphs from a statement into a conclusion, because at each retelling, a different mind is used to interpret and critically analyze its implications. This behavior of the human mind has always made language communication imperfect.
_____________________________________________________
Sociologists have been trying for many years now to get a handle on the dynamics of online communities. A big part of sociology is the study of communication within a society—its methods, impact, and consequences. One of the most influential facts of online communication is that we lose so many essential elements of our communication capability. Social appearance preparation—a complicated and interconnected system of sensory components carefully evolved and adapted for a face-to-face society—is completely irrelevant.
These aspects of our identity in an online community either completely vanish or can be fabricated or hidden to such an extent that it amounts to the same thing.
ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL APPEARANCE PREPARATION
- Body Language: facial expressions, hand movements, postures, and head positions
- Clothing: how we dress and style our hair, and how it conforms to societal norms
- Scent: how we smell, and the reaction that scent engages in others
- Body Features: body shape, prominent body curves
- Hygenic Features: configuration and cleanliness of teeth, cleanliness of hair and fingernails
- Conversational Intelligence: correct/incorrect pronunciation and articulation, listening skills, empathy, charm
- Vocal Peculiarities: the timbre of our voice, the volume of our speech, tonal inflection, and dialectical accent
So, what are we left to communicate with? Our intellect, our writing ability, our work ethic, our ability and desire to manage time, and our reason. That's a small bag of tricks in which to avoid misunderstandings, to be sure. Is it any wonder that we are all acolytes in the Cult of Paranoia?
One of the main benefits of face-to-face communication is that there is so much more data being fed to you concerning a person's perspective and circumstances.
Let's say you are in my age-bracket, 50-ish, and you cross paths with a teenager in a park. In that instant of recognition, you have a world of data available to you. Your new acquaintance has a candy-apple-red mohawk, several facial piercings, a right arm covered in tattoos, a worn skateboard in his left hand, a skull ring on the index finger of his right hand, and is wearing a sleeveless muscle shirt that reads: "Your World Sucks."
Deciding immediately that this young person will offer you nothing but annoyance, you roll your eyes and move past him. The kid probably slams his skateboard down and skates away, reaffirming his dedication to those timeless teenage mantras, "I hate old people," and "They'll never understand."
Both you and the teenager exchanged sensory data and made a judgment of each other. In essence, you did exactly what we all do every day in online communities, but with the opposite communication advantages. You used only sensory data without considering intellect, communication ability, and information deduction through conversation feedback.
This situation illustrates our difficulties by painting the negative space of the concept.
Now, just for fun, let's run that scenario back and play it again, but this time, you say to the teenager: "The world does suck sometimes, doesn't it?"
He laughs and nods.
You notice the "Nightwish" pendant around his neck, a detail you would have missed if you had not turned toward him for an answer. Your closer look at his adornments seems like serendipity, for you are a monster Nightwish fan yourself.
And so begins an improbable conversation. His eyes are bright and observant and meet your gaze with confidence, his posture is straight and respectful, he listens while you speak, and answers your question in a quiet, intelligent, and thorough manner. The two of you have almost nothing in common at first blush, but discover that you are both diehard Nightwish fans. You inform him that you had a skateboard when you were in middle school. You admit everyone called you a poseur; he laughs and shows you a rail-slide he just perfected. You're impressed. You discover that his grandmother was a friend of your mother's; they used to work together. The conversation lasts an hour. You're sorry for it to end.
In this scenario, the person's perspective and circumstances were the defining trait that you enjoyed about them. And you almost missed them altogether because of communication interference and snap judgments. You misinterpreted signals or chose to focus on data that was irrelevant.
How often do we do this to others we come in contact with in our online communities? How often do we misunderstand? No wonder we're all so paranoid about being misunderstood. It's easier for people to fill in the blanks with false information than to delay judgment until the actual details are available. Sometimes, they never come at all, and the human mind will always strive to complete an incomplete image. We'll always settle on a conclusion, even if we have to make one up.
_____________________________________________________
In every instance of online communication, there is a sender and a receiver of the message. These are integral aspects, for there cannot be a message without either of them. And we, as members of an online community, play both roles at various times. What can we do to make sure that we are doing an adequate job at both?
If you're the sender:
Be Clear. When sending a communication to another person online, say exactly what you want to say and no more. This is much easier said than done. Edit yourself. If you are waffling about whether you should include a sentence or word choice because it may be taken wrong, leave it out. If you see its ambiguity, many others will too. Understand that "It's time to eat, Grandma" has a much different meaning if the comma is left out. Avoid ambiguity by being precise with your language. Acknowledge that the English language and syntax is set up for all kinds of wonderful double entendre, as in these examples:
~Mercutio, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "Tis no less [a good day], I tell you; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon." I wasn't around London during the Elizabethan Golden Age, but I daresay this loaded line would have gotten quite a few chuckles from the audience. (Did I just write "loaded line?")
~The day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, a female news anchor turned to the weatherman on air and asked: "So Bob, where's that eight inches you promised me last night?" The broadcast was diverted immediately, and the weatherman and half the camera crew laughed the anchor right into a tearful resignation.
~A popular song from the 1970's by The Bellamy Brothers is called "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?" So, does the singer want his subject to hold her body against him physically, or is he asking if she'd mind if he paid her a compliment? Now, this is an extremely clever use of language in a song, but when these types of ambiguous sentences appear in your online communications, the receiver is left confused by what you mean.
~Mercutio, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "Tis no less [a good day], I tell you; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon." I wasn't around London during the Elizabethan Golden Age, but I daresay this loaded line would have gotten quite a few chuckles from the audience. (Did I just write "loaded line?")
~The day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, a female news anchor turned to the weatherman on air and asked: "So Bob, where's that eight inches you promised me last night?" The broadcast was diverted immediately, and the weatherman and half the camera crew laughed the anchor right into a tearful resignation.
~A popular song from the 1970's by The Bellamy Brothers is called "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?" So, does the singer want his subject to hold her body against him physically, or is he asking if she'd mind if he paid her a compliment? Now, this is an extremely clever use of language in a song, but when these types of ambiguous sentences appear in your online communications, the receiver is left confused by what you mean.
~Here are some purported headlines from around the world. I would imagine that both writer and editor are ashamed of their inability to communicate a clear message to their readership:
*Include Your Children When Baking Cookies
*Gangsters Get Nine Months in Violin Case
*Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
*Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
*Miners Refuse to Work After Death
*Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
*Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter
*Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
*Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
*New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
*Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space
*Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Anticipate Reaction. Remember what you know about whom you are sending your message to, and use that information to craft communication tailored just for them. If you are sending a message to your best friend in the community, keep consistent so that he or she does not think that your relationship has changed due to some unknown event or unintended communication. If you are sending a message to someone with whom you have never communicated before, understand that this will be your chance to make a good first impression. If you are responding to a question or request, remember that the receiver has a certain level of anticipation for your answer, and answer with tact and diplomacy. If you are declining a request, explain your reasons for doing so. If you are excited to be included in something, say so. Imagine the disposition of the member on the other side of your message, and match it with your tone and words.
Use Emojis. These handy shortcuts to body language have been around for as long as people have been communicating with each other via text. They give you back some of your capability to express yourself non-verbally. (On FanStory, emojis are there for you in every channel other than reviewing. Just right-click in the text field, select "emoji," and choose one!)
Reread, Proofread, Reword. You should always reread your emails, messages, contest listings, forum posts, general replies, and reviews before sending them away for judgment. You should edit all grammatical errors or errors in syntax and usage. You should reword any word or phrase that is unclear or ambiguous. There isn't much else to say about these three things. Just do them. I'm not saying that every email or post has to always be perfect. I try as hard as I possibly can every single time, and I still make errors. But you know if you click "send" without rereading, proofreading, and rewording. If you do, you are lazy and/or incompetent, and your error-riddled emails and incomprehensible reviews offer sacrificial fodder to the Cult of Paranoia. Not to mention damage your image as a quality artist.
If you're the receiver:
Offer the Benefit of the Doubt. One of the greatest relationship skills we can all improve upon is the ability to think the best of people. Imagine how many arguments, misunderstandings, and hurt feelings could be avoided if we could just assume the best about a person and wait for damning evidence of wrongdoing. But as I mentioned above, human brains insist on completing patterns, and the human animal enjoys drawing conclusions. Because of these facts, it is very easy to start down a wrong path with someone and just keep going. Try this. Go back into your messages, reviews, or replies and find one from someone you used to feel cold about but have since grown close to. Reread that email now from your new perspective. Does it seem more genuine and friendly? Have the messages that you saw hidden between the lines before faded?
Be Empathetic. In a PBS interview, Kentucky author Barbara Kingsolver called empathy "the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own." With only a few very rare exceptions, people are not sitting in front of their computers or phones thinking of ways to make your life miserable. They have their own feelings with which to deal and their own lives to manage. When receiving a message from someone, keep that message in its context, both as pertains to circumstances as well as time. A message, reply, or review sent at two o'clock in the morning after someone has been writing all day is going to be quite different than the ones you receive that were written during an initial morning coffee rush.
Reserve Judgment. Resist the urge to make up your mind about someone without actual facts concerning their context and circumstances. It is fair to judge a person based on his or her earned reputation, but always try to remember that you may not be privy to the reasons why someone isn't communicating well. It is hard not to be irritated with those who will sour your community or increase your workload. Just be sure you keep a backdoor of understanding, forgiveness, and compassion available for them if and when they apologize and explain their reasons.
_____________________________________________________
In your quest to deny the Cult of Paranoia, remember that it is your ability to reason that offers your greatest boon. Our reason is what helps us interpret the world around us, allowing us to make judgments that are fair, balanced, and equitable. Our reason builds a reality for us that we can predict or else prepares us to face the unpredictable. It is our only protection from events beyond our control and the relentless fear of chaos.
Our reason constructs causeways to inner peace and psychological stability. But our reason has a host of enemies, and these merciless assailants are marshaled by our emotions. Like charismatic cult leaders, they interfere, thwart, delude, deceive, and poison our rationality.
Educational philosopher Robert Hutchins said it best: "This is a do-it-yourself test for paranoia: you know you've got it when you can't think of anything that's your fault."
If we apply our reason to every instance of communication we experience—whether it be as sender or receiver—we'll easily see how every message has more than one way it can be interpreted; in fact, it's often a bursting kaleidoscope of multifaceted nuance and connotation.
However, if you follow the points above, you can deny the Cult of Paranoia any power over you or over those with which you want to share a community.
Below are two images, visual expressions of the fact that you can never quite trust your perspective, for even in an image that does not change, there can forever be two opposing right answers.
British cartoonist William Ely Hill, Puck Magazine, 1915 Sky and Water I ~ M.C. Escher
|
Post Number 50 A Milestone Post |
 Recognized |
You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.
© Copyright 2024. Patrick Bernardy All rights reserved.
Patrick Bernardy has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.