It cannot go without saying that in the last few decades (the PC enlightenment), a veritable influx of communication methods has stormed our lives. Text messaging, IM’ing, cell phones, web cams, chat rooms, voice chatting and two-waying are just some of the forms of communication we’ve added to our lives. What is unfortunate about this is that we almost have no choice whether or not we jump on the bandwagon. We absorb, translate and transmit information without even knowing it. Being “online” is no longer the über savvy way to stay in contact with the rest of the world; it is a necessity to thrive in our information based society.
We encounter various forms of communication almost constantly throughout our daily lives. Those who don’t are lucky and presumably less stressed out. We only have to go back in time about 150 years to land in a world where literacy was a privilege. Flash forward to today and if you can’t read, you can’t live. This overstatement (for emphasis of course) rings with truth for anyone living in the first world. Being constantly engaged in communication draws up some interesting questions. First off, where is all this communication? Communication is hidden in everything. It is in the usual suspects, like books, music, film and basically any kind of written text we encounter on a daily basis. But it can also be elsewhere, places not looked at as sources of messages, and therefore problematically, places of miscommunication. Fashion is one major influential source of communication especially in America. Where do trends come from? They aren’t just made up in Cosmopolitan think tanks; they almost directly react to the demand of the public. In a capitalist society as such we are, it is us; the consumers, that ask and receive what we want. Fashion cannot only speak for us, but the public as a whole. Of course this is just one of the forms of communication we partake in without consciousness. This leads us to judge others based on how they look, or rather, the message they are sending us with their appearance. But is this wrong? In some ways, we cannot help but absorb these implicit messages woven throughout our lives.
Prejudices of someone’s appearance, gender, race, culture, religion, sexual identity or ethnicity are all forms of communication. These are also often the messages that are hard to read. To avoid these
misrepresentations we can turn to other forms of communication that are more reliable. Written and spoken words are two that contain much more concreteness. Art is another way of reading someone’s message although often up to the viewer’s interpretation. We also send messages through facial expressions and body language. These forms are relied upon on much more than we think, however are either difficult to decipher or simply go unnoticed.
Mankind’s need to communicate effectively will always be a source of much debate. Forms of communication, the way we intake information and the way we attempt to transmit messages are controversies within the discourse of language. If you ever feel that you are being misunderstood or misread, think about the communicative techniques you are taking part in unconsciously. If we make an effort as humans to read wisely of our lives and speak about ourselves (in various ways) truthfully, then we can reach a better understanding of our culture and ourselves. Communication in its advanced forms is something uniquely humanistic, a source of great achievement as well as conflict. Let us all think twice about the communication in our lives and in our world to better the flow of conversation amongst us.
