{"id":211,"date":"2019-02-01T16:47:51","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T15:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philipjetheridge.com\/?p=211"},"modified":"2022-05-20T10:29:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T08:29:40","slug":"26-communication-breakdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/01\/26-communication-breakdown\/","title":{"rendered":"26. Communication Breakdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We have so many ways to communicate with each other today, but we still often hit a communication brick-wall. You can write to people as often as you like, but you can\u2019t force them to read what you write. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I use two\ne-mail addresses, SMS, What\u2019s App, Snapchat (now and again) and Messenger. Which\ndoesn\u2019t sound like a lot I must admit. But everybody has their own channel preference\nand I need to monitor them all, so I don\u2019t miss something. And that\u2019s not\nalways easy as I also have my preferences. The more options there are, the more\ncomplex it all becomes. The many groups in Messenger, which are often comprised\nof different combinations of the same people, make it hard for me to remember\nwhere a conversation has taken place. Or was that conversation in an email? The\ntime I\u2019ve wasted looking for specific messages! And\nevery little event becomes a new group and sometimes I get a little dazed and\nconfused by it.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the\nadvent of internet, I wrote letters and was in regular contact with many people,\nboth family and friends. A few times a year, that is. Most wrote back just as\nregularly, and some didn\u2019t. But who writes letters these days? Not me, though I\nsometimes find myself writing emails like they were letters, which is probably\nnot such a good idea. By writing too much it feels like I\u2019m stealing time in someone\u2019s\nlife by asking them to read it and I even feel guilty doing that! Which is of\ncourse totally nuts. Letters used to anyway get opened and presumably read. Whereas\nemails can get lost in reams of spam, or read, closed and forgotten, if they\u2019re\nnot answered quickly. If there\u2019s news to impart, is it OK to write long emails?\nI hope so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love the\nease with which I can instantly message people whenever I want, but what are\nour expectations on a reply? People are rarely able to answer right away, so I\ndon\u2019t expect a ding within seconds, or even hours. But I have to say it\u2019s\nfrustrating when a reply never shows up, and that happens. So, what’s the etiquette\nfor messaging to a friend? What are the dos and don\u2019ts? Must you always keep messages\nshort if you want an answer? When is it OK not to answer? More than 20 words? More\nthan 10 words? I\u2019ve no idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To check up on messaging etiquette, I looked through a few sites and there are plenty of them. But I found nothing that specifically addressed the questions above. On the other hand, there was quite a lot on how (I presume) algorithms handle ignored messages in Messenger. And comments like this one: \u201cIf the person is in your contacts that means you know the person, so ignoring their message might just make things awkward next time you see them. Otherwise who the hell really cares?? I ignore messages all the time!\u201d<\/em> Brilliant! Now that\u2019s what I call social media!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point being, all this technology\nmeant to help us communicate with each other is no help at all if we choose not\nto read messages, or not to reply. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I loved Led\nZeppelin when it came out in 1969. But it was still the 60s, and that was very\nmuch reflected in the lyrics. Not that I cared about that at the time. I was\nonly interested in the music, the voice, the sound and the way they played.\nRobert Plant, last addition to the band, didn\u2019t contribute to the writing on\nthis album, apart from on \u201cBabe I\u2019m Gonne Leave You\u201d. But his time was gonna\ncome. Here\u2019s verse 2 of \u201cCommunication Breakdown\u201d: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hey girl I\ngot something I think you ought to know.
\nHey babe I want to tell you that I love you so.
\nI want to hold you in my arms, yeah!
\nI’m never gonna let you go,
\n‘Cause I like your charms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what the hell. It was great anyway and Plant had me convinced, even with these lyrics.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have so many ways to communicate with each other today, but we still often hit a communication brick-wall. You can write to people as often as you like, but you can\u2019t force them to read what you write. I use two e-mail addresses, SMS, What\u2019s App, Snapchat (now and again) and Messenger. Which doesn\u2019t … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “26. Communication Breakdown”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266,"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philipjetheridge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}