Why Email Starts Fights

BNET has a great video on how email needs to be used appropriately for communication. Words, tone and visual cues are very important in 1x1 and group communications. With ninety-three percent of communication being  nonverbal, email is not always the optimal medium for effective interpersonal communication.

Comments

[Ed Muzio]

The question about dealing with diverse opinions via Twitter (and the like) is a good one, and is directly on point with my topic in the video.

If you are face-to-face with someone who is is expressing an opinion contrary to yours, along with that opinion you get a lot of nonverbal cues, such as voice and body language. Those cues can serve to tell you that the person is open to discussion, that you are safe with this person, etc., and thus make the "text" of the message far more palatable. In other words, it is the non-verbal cues that set the context for dialogue.

On the other hand, when an inflammatory statement comes to you in a text message, all you get is the words. In the absence of nonverbal messages that may be reinforcing the positive elements of your relationship with this person (a smile or wink, a warm tone, a quizzical look indicating openness to further conversation), the disturbing message comes across in a vacuum. Human beings are defensive creatures, and so you unconsciously fill in the “blanks” of that vacuum with some worst case assumptions: this person doesn’t get it, this person doesn’t understand me, this person is unkind, etc. These defensive assumptions may be useful from a survival perspective but they are not particularly helpful to dialogue, because what is likely to happen is fight or flight. You either disengage, or you reply quickly and defensively, from your worst case assumptions, often in the process starting (or adding to) some kind of flame war.

That’s exactly why e-mail starts fights, and it’s true for text and Twitter too. The fact that these mediums make it possible to alienate people and/or have flame wars in front of others only fuels the fire, as everyone is now aware that they have an audience.

Recent technological developments are giving us new ways to communicate with each other, but it’s as important as ever that we understand the basics of communication so that we use them correctly. After all, we still teach kids to do math even though we all have calculators now!

[juliemarg]

The surprising thing to me is that many people are twitting for business - their profile indicates that their purpose is networking, yet they are willing to write off all that don't agree. I don't think their intention is to alienate, they just seem unaware that any reasonable person might disagree with them.

[Heather]

Excellent question, Julie! To be brief, I believe this video's principles actually apply to social media as well. What's different here is that typically email is a somewhat "closed loop" communication. You have a single person or a group of people connected to an email "conversation." In social networks, whether it is Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, for example, the conversation is open and anyone can provide feedback or opinion. What makes this challenging is where "human nature" comes in, where people naturally want to react - intellectually or emotionally. Having conversation in a fragmented environment, like Twitter, is a challenge. Imagine if you were in a coffee shop talking politics with a familiar and trusted friend, but your conversation was being broadcast to everyone in the cafe and anyone could come in and contribute their beliefs, feelings, even emotion into that conversation.

It is a challenge and I think being aware of your reactions and being open to differing opinions is the best you can do. I also truly believe, being a part of the conversation, is also helping to shape a larger context and belief system. We all don't need to agree, but contributing ideas and opinion is what makes the Web so collaborative now. In other words, your opinions count. It's how you want to share, react and know when to bow out that is also key to protecting trusted and anonymous relationships created online.

[juliemarg]

Great video -- how do you think this applies to blogs and sites like twitter? I find that I am reacting very badly to the political preaching - when in person I've always been very good at coexisting with conflicting points of view - able to defend my position without damaging the relationship.