Despite all of the means we have to communicate this day and age (text-ing, MSN-ing, bb message-ing, emails, and yes, even calling…) effective communication continues to elude most of us on a continual and reoccurring basis.
The fact of the matter is, most of us are communication “dunces.”
That’s right, I said “dunces!”
You know, the little guy or gal in the corner with the big cone hat?
That’s us, right now.
How many times have you had a conversation with someone who is looking down at their smart phone? [I have to admit, that I myself am guilty as charged for this offence!]
Messaging while trying to carry on a conversation seems to offend the older generations tremendously and slightly put off the rest of us (but not entirely). Our inability to diversify our attention at A-D-D, or attention deficit disorder frequencies is troubling to say the least.
I recently had a conversation with my business partners which resulted in complete frustration simply because we weren’t taking the time to communicate effectively. We were all distracted and couldn’t come to a simple consensus on a basic issue.
Remember -REPEATING the same thing over and over does NOT improve your communication skills. If you are distracted by, say, email, facebook or any other such thing, it is very easy to attempt muti-tasking when all you’re really doing is shutting down your listening and therefore degrading your communication.
Now, think of circus training and how detrimental it would be if your teacher or trainer or partner is not absolutely focused on the maneuver at hand. Your safety and therefore your life would be at risk if you are not focused on communicating.
Consider, then, if you are tasked with rigging an apparatus and you are responsible for the lives of other performers… Is it appropriate to take a phone call in the gantry with shackles in hand?
Of course not!
Friends, I am not an expert communicator but I’d sure love to be one day. In the meantime, I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Now, I’ll listen 
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Jullie, you have addressed an interesting issue.
I am a strong believer in science (evidence based knowledge), which has empowered me in my beliefs of any kind.
From social standpoint, at least in the cultures I am familiar with (I am a trilingual), not paying attention to an interlocutor (friend/colleague/spouse etc) is an ineffective (not to mention impolite) way of communicating and I agree with you 110%.
Human mind works best when it is focused. This is a fact.
An interesting article/comment by Ophir et al:
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Sep 15;106(37):15583-7. Epub 2009 Aug 24.
Cognitive control in media multitaskers.
Ophir E, Nass C, Wagner AD.
Symbolic Systems Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2050, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Sep 15;106(37):15521-2.
Chronic media multitasking is quickly becoming ubiquitous, although processing multiple incoming streams of information is considered a challenge for human cognition. A series of experiments addressed whether there are systematic differences in information processing styles between chronically heavy and light media multitaskers. A trait media multitasking index was developed to identify groups of heavy and light media multitaskers. These two groups were then compared along established cognitive control dimensions. Results showed that heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli and from irrelevant representations in memory (Shary’s comment: This is no good for dancers
). This led to the surprising result that heavy media multitaskers performed worse on a test of task-switching ability, likely due to reduced ability to filter out interference from the irrelevant task set. These results demonstrate that media multitasking, a rapidly growing societal trend, is associated with a distinct approach to fundamental information processing.
Shary,
Thanks so much for contributing your thoughts on this topic. Thanks also for sharing the “Cognitive control in media multitaskers” article -very interesting!
Certainly, being multi-lingual (in your case trilingual ~so awesome BTW!) leads to effective communication as you have the ability to surpass language and cultural barriers.
(Sigh) This is one of the many reasons why I love Canada so much!
Land of many cultures and home of the self-proclaimed multi-taskers