“Studies have shown that 85-90% of what people communicate is not with words.”

MSN, Yahoo messenger, ICQ, AIM and such live chat program seem to be archaic to me thinking you can just communicate through such program just by words. I’ll just ignore emoticon for now, although I’ll just say it here that emoticons are very misleading tools.

What’s the difference between instant messengers and a telegram? Well, even telephone seems to be more sophisticated than instant messengers.
In real life conversation between 2 people, you have words, pitch, gesture, rhythm, physical contact, and even environment at your service. All these tools mean a lot in communication. They can add to the words, help clarify the meaning of what you’re trying to say, or they can misleading you completely from your intended context.

People tend to pay more attention to the 10-15% and ignore the more important 85-90%. Of course, when someone yells at you, who would ever pay attention to what he’s trying to say? You just yell back at him, or sometimes, you stay quiet but you’re madder than hell your ears are ringing. You won’t hear a thing…

What if you don’t have the 85-90% to use? Would the 10-15% go straight to the brain?

I’ve just witnessed a misunderstanding between two friends in chatroom a few days ago. One of them was mad about an incident earlier while the other tried to calm him down. The two were not really close, and their scope of experience didn’t really intersect. The calmer tried to calm the mad down. What he thought was soothing words turned out to be viewed as I-don’t-give-a-damn words to the mad. The mad got madder and left the chatroom immediately.

A friend of mine emailed his boss;

“i’m sure you’re pleased with a lot of projects i’ve done for the company. my question to you is that would you consider giving me a raise?”

Maybe I’m a bit too dramatic. Maybe I watched too many movies, but I could read the email above in so many ways.

INT. BOSS OFFICE. LATE AFTERNOON.

Bob strolls in the oval office and sits in one of the chair in front of Mr. P’s table. Mr. P looks up a little stun.

BOB (relax…a little too relax..thinking marlon brando’s quiet talk)

I’m sure you’re pleased with a lot of projects I’ve done for the company. (raise his finger at Mr. P.)
My question to YOU is that would you consider giving me a raise?

———————————-

That was one way to put it. Without knowing Bob, you could couple the words with the 85% any way you want, and the results would turn out differently.

But well… I know a little bit of Bob. I knew he meant every words just as they were, no two ways about it. ;D