Nonverbal Communication Is Liberated through Technology
When I walked into the kitchen and found my two youngest sons giggling, I knew they’d been up to something. “What were you doing?” I asked. “Come see!” they gleefully invited. Walking over, I found them watching themselves on YouTube. They had posted a music video of their own creation. The clip was almost entirely nonverbal: it showed them dancing wildly, waving their hands in the air, making funny faces, and pretending (badly) to sing. When I asked them why they had created the video, they said, “Because we want our friends who are gone for the summer to be able to see us!” Sure enough, the rest of the evening was spent checking the number of “views” they had received and texting their vacationing friends regarding the video.
When you text or post photos for your friends and loved ones, you’re engaging in nonverbal communication. How else do you communicate nonverbally via technology?
Jim Wilson/The New York Times/Redux Pictures
As recently as 20 years ago, our ability to communicate nonverbally was radically restricted by technology. Phone calls limited us to vocal cues, and communicating on the computer meant seeing words on a screen—nothing else. Only one option existed for experiencing the full tapestry of nonverbal communication: face-to-face interaction. But now, nonverbal communication has been liberated through technology. We can upload and download photos and video clips on our devices. We can podcast, stream videos, and post clips of ourselves—then alert all our friends via e-mail, Twitter, texts, and Facebook that our content is available for viewing. As of 2012, over four billion videos are viewed daily on YouTube (“YouTube Statistics,” n.d.).
This shift from technological restriction to liberation has created two notable outcomes. First, whereas we used to have just two communication modes—face-to-face interaction or methods with limited nonverbal content (such as phone calls or e-mails)—now we can choose various media that let us hear and see others when interacting. Second, we can use these media to better maintain intimate, long-distance relationships. Like my sons and their YouTube video, friends and loved ones separated by distance—through summer vacations or unanticipated relocations—can also maintain intimate connections through frequent sharing of video clips and photos.
Skills Practice
Maintaining Online Friendship
Using nonverbal communication online to maintain a friendship
- Identify a long-distance friend with whom you haven’t communicated recently.
- Think of a story or an update that you want to share with that friend.
- Compose a message explaining your story that uses nonverbal cues such as photos or video of yourself.
- Before sending, review your facial expressions, eye contact, body movement, voice, and appearance; make sure they communicate positively what you want to express.
- E-mail or post the footage, and see how your friend responds.