The Diary Of Uncertainties 03/2021

Humans are wired to connect and communicate; with the virtual life taking over, and the face-to-face interaction declining significantly, due to a current global pandemic. It makes me wonder; will the future be lonely? Can Social media take a toll in our mental health?

Or is it just my luddite-self with influences of a new “Techno-Panic”? The total fragmentation of the human senses provoked by online interaction, where touch, smells and other sensorial experiences are fading away. Is the rabbit hole of scrolling your phone a waste of life or a new way to live?

Social Communication

When we look at the way that humans communicate, I realised that this process is really complex and diverse. A spoken sentence can have a meaning of a multitude of different things. Breaking social communication into its basic components consists in two sides; the verbal component, that mainly deals with words, and the non verbal communication, which deals with everything else that is influencing the communication processes, such as body language, facial expression and tone of voice. In the book “Silent Messages” A Wealth of Information About Nonverbal Communication (Body Language), Dr. Albert Mehrabian from the University of California, has determined that non verbal component makes 93% of the social communication process, leaving only 7% to words. My main quest and uncertainty is: what are the implications of mainly using 7%? The main platforms we use today to communicate, such as email, text message or writing on social media, means we are not communicating in its full potential.