A failure to communicate…

In this modern world where communication is so very easy why does really communicating appear to be so difficult? It can’t be that there aren’t enough ways to communicate, after all what with with e-mail, texting, mobile phone technology, videoconferencing, social networking and the rest there are more ways than ever to talk to each other.

Maybe that’s the problem, or at least part of it. There are so many ways to communicate that don’t actually involve meeting with the person you want to communicate with that sometimes its easier to take that option. I know I do, and I do it increasingly.

These days it is so damned hard to get away from it all like we used to do what with the always available expectation that people seem to see as the norm. Of course a lot of that is self-driven. I find myself checking for texts every few minutes and whenever I sit down at my computer the first thing I do is check my e-mails and then Facebook. But then and again increasingly, I think most of us do. It’s a very brave (or an incredibly rich) man who doesn’t carry a mobile phone around or use e-mail.

Odd really, DUR when there were no mobile phones, no e-mail or texting? I do, after all I come from a time when there wasn’t a phone in the house let alone one in my pocket, a time when if you wanted to talk to somebody you had to pop around and see them and people popped around all the time. If you wanted to communicate with somebody who was a long way away then you’d send them a letter written by hand and posted in an envelope. It was only in emergencies really that you might go to the phone box and make a call, and if something was really urgent then you may even have sent a telegram (stop).

Generally back then though you met people face to face. Of course we all had more time then, more time for ourselves and more time for each other and of course life really was much simpler and people talked for the fun of it and not simply because they wanted something, wanted you do something, or wanted you to buy something.

Well, not all of the time at least. Back then people spoke for the pleasure of it, to pass the time of day. Or at least that’s how I remember it. Perhaps it’s just rose-tinted glasses, but I suspect it’s not. More time, simpler, less demanding, less I want it now because not only could you not have it now, you couldn’t have it at all because it simply wasn’t there to be had and more importantly NOBODY EXPECTED IT TO BE.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m in touch with lots of people through these new ways of communicating that I wouldn’t otherwise be in touch with - although that probably says a lot more about me than it does about the way we communicate. But e-mails and statuses, and worst of all bloody text messaging which allows you to invade another person’s life without any reference to what might be happening in that person’s life as you send your bloody text. Texts can be so insistent and they are so easy to misinterpret or react to. At least with a letter you can choose not to answer it, you can even decide not to answer your phone, but a text? A text is so inconspicuous whilst at the same time having such (suck) potential to cause offence and before you know it you’re into a text battle, trying to blow your opponent out of the water in a battle of texted responses.

I’m telling you all this by way of an admission really. I’m in the online, impersonal, communication trap and recently have had cause to regret it - the text battle to end all text battles with no winners. Mind you even talking failed, so I guess you’d say that what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate, as Paul Newman once said.

Thing is, communication is hard. It requires two people to want to talk, to try to agree on things, to see each other’s point of view and yes, I know – that just isn’t going to happen is it? Oh, I know what drove me to this sorry state – my texts, e-mails, phone calls are generally from somebody who wants something from me, wants to sell me something, or wants me to do something I’m either not ready, or at all sure that I even want to do. Hardly ever do I get any sort of communication from somebody who really just wants to have a chat and see how I’m feeling.

How many times do I pick up the phone and hear something like - ‘Hi, I’m Alice. I’m calling to tell you all about our new product.’ And I reply - ‘That’s very interesting Alice. Can I ask you a few questions?’And of course I can’t, because Alice isn’t there at all she’s just a recorded message. Now Alice might have something quite meaningful to sell me, I may even want it, but because she’s just a recording and I know from previous experience that she wants to sell me something I don’t even bother to listen.

And that really is the problem. Most communication is made in the wrong form and usually it only takes into account the needs and wants of the sender, the receiver is just – well the person you want to do something.

Of course sometimes I actually do get a call, text, or e-mail from somebody just wanting to let me know that they’re there (thanks to those that do this) but I get more pushes than enquiries. Mind you, it seems a little different in the countryside. In Wales people will stop for a face-to-face chat at the drop of a hat and still be chatting an hour later – albeit in Welsh.

Generally though, I’m sad to say, most communications - calls, texts, e-mails - have a purpose, a sting in the tail, either a ‘could you’, a ‘would you’, or a ‘you must', or even a combination of all three - and frankly, increasingly and very often, I can’t, I won’t, and I’m not going to.

So I guess that you could say that what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

Thanks Luke.