What you will learn:
Some aspects of our communication shifted to screens and things have changed in a fundamental manner. But the medium was not the only thing that changed – our brains were also changed in the way that we process, interpret and give meaning to human connection. It's been known for a while now by neuroscience and psychology that the brain is designed for human interaction, that is, it reads micro-expressions in milliseconds, imitates body language without hesitation and manages our emotional reactions in the feedback of the real human interaction. Take all that out, squash it into a text message, leave a voicemail, and you lose your signal, you redesign the entire structure of relationship. It's no exaggeration. In the digital era, the way we communicate with each other has not only altered, but the definition of being in touch has also subtly grown more complex.This is a new in a series of articles covering the development of the Asynchronous Connection.
Most would say it's easier for a variety of reasons—why do you prefer to text over call? However, there's a lot of mental horsepower in the word easier in that sentence. What they are really talking about is control – control over when and how and what they say. You're able to reflect on what you want to say before you respond when you send a message. You have the opportunity to rewrite, rewrite, delete, rewrite and paraphrase until you get the version of yourself you want to send out. There's no such buffer with a phone call. This requires real time processing, and for many – especially social-anxious or sensitive to others' opinion – this is a real burden.
This is also known as a decrease in immediacy-anxiety, and is one of the fundamental reasons why most of our relationships are conducted in the asynchronic mode. Self-government is also a factor. You are not interrupted by having a text message received like you would be with a telephone call. You can answer it when you like, how you like and it is psychologically reinforcing because it is your choice to do so. We continue to select it as it is pleasurable — and as it actually decreases a category of social rubbing.
The compromise however, is great. In a way, the relational data that is integral in experiencing being “felt” is systematically removed in the process of asynchronous communication. Not having a shared moment is not having overlap in real-time experiences and therefore is not a reciprocal connection. You're sharing and even lavishing affection — just not with each other. A text-heavy relationship can be very unusual, even in the presence of a lot of text communication, over time. The more contacts we have doesn't necessarily mean the deeper the contact and our nervous systems know the difference, even when our conscious minds don't.
All the missing pieces of the Digital Dialogue
- Micro-expressions disappear entirely. The human face expresses more than 10,000 different expressions, many of which are fleeting and last less than a fifth of a second – these expressions communicate emotions which may not even be conscious to the individual. Digital text takes all of this out, and requires us to make huge leaps in interpretation on our own — typically by reading into the text from our own feelings.- Words, by themselves, do not always convey emotional messages that are sometimes expressed as part of the voice's sound. Time and time again, paralinguistic studies indicate that more emotional significance is conveyed through the manner in which it is expressed than through the words themselves. These are the qualities of pitch, pace, and rhythm: sarcastic, warm, agitated, hesitant, and excited. A happy "okay" on a screen is pretty dull without that, as is a period in place of an emoji, or vice versa (no, no emoji isn't a period, either).
- There is a greater empathy gap when we aren't there in person. Empathy is in part a bodily phenomenon, we feel it in our body when we see somebody feel distress or joy. When someone we know drops their shoulders or sounds down, our mirror neuron systems are triggered but not when someone writes "I'm fine :)". Researchers have dubbed the psychological distancing of the screen the online dis-inhibition effect, meaning that online you can say things that you wouldn't say in person, sometimes more truthfully, but often more recklessly.
- Unintended emotional signal – response timing. A pause is a pause–in person. Currently, a late response in a message thread is interpreted as plain old ignoring, or one-upmanship or avoidance, even when such is not the case. We've created a whole emotional lexicon about read receipts, typing indicators and reply speed that doesn't exist in the offline world, and it causes more than a little low level anxiety about the relationship.
The physical touch and proximity is not replicated digitally. The main way to stimulate release of Oxytocin most commonly known as the bonding and trust chemical is through being there and touching. There is no way, that an emoji, a GIF or a perfectly crafted message can ever convey the message that can be sent by a hand on a shoulder at a time of grief or by a true hug at the end of a long time apart. Many times we don't notice this lack consciously, yet in a cumulative effect.
Relational nuance is lost in ‘context collapse'. We don't speak the same way to friends, family, or strangers.We don't talk the same way to our friends, family or strangers. That contextual intelligence dissipates on most of the digital platforms; that post, message or reply becomes the version of you that exists at the same time for a teenager, a co-worker, a grandmother, and a stranger. This flattening is on both the authenticity and development of relational depth.
Excessive information overload in the digital world can lead to digital fatigue.
Cognitive psychologists refer to a phenomenon known as “attention residue” coined by Sophie Leroy, a researcher, about what happens when we switch tasks. Once you've switched to a new activity, some aspect of your brain remains focused on the previous activity, unfinished and unresolved. Add to this, the average person switches apps and platforms dozens of times an hour, gets hundreds of digital notifications a day and engages in multiple and overlapping conversations across various platforms at the same time. It is not only a distraction, the result is. It's a kind of partial attention that goes on over the long haul which quietly lowers the quality of all of our interactions.Being “too online” is not the only problem with digital fatigue. A natural, physiological and psychological reaction to an overload of cognition. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that controls sustained attention, emotional regulation and complex social reasoning, and has limited resources – it burns through resources more quickly when there is constant context switching than during any other cognitive activity. It's not a matter of getting the job done, it's a matter of being relationally present. Deep listening is neurologically challenging when your mind is working in bits and pieces, in an interrupt-driven fashion. You're right there, in the conversation, and you're a little bit done with the previous notification, and a little bit expecting the next one.
This can have a tangible impact on the relationship. Research on conversation and cellphone use (even a phone that's face down on a table) indicates that individuals feel less connected, trusted and empathized with when a cellphone is present during the conversation. The brain allocates attention anticipatorily and it is also an automatic process. The mere fact that there is a potential notification to receive trains us to be in a low grade vigilant state that does not allow us to be truly open and receptive in our focus on the other person to truly listen to what they are saying. All these deficits accumulate over time and from one relationship to another. In the digital domain sustained presence is the rarest of resources and depth is essential (e.g. reliable blogger templates use to create a online presense).
The Goal is to build Intentional Digital Habits!
That's not to say that the aim should be to dismiss digital communication, it's not realistic and, in all honesty, not needed. The idea is to end the default and begin to take some deliberate action. That includes knowing when to break up a text thread and turn to a phone call, when to break up the phone call and meet in person, and sometimes, when the right thing we can do is admit that a platform isn't the right medium for the meeting we need to have. It doesn't have to do with some romantic notion of presence, it's just because if you want to be attentive to someone you have to have time and space to be undistracted. In practice, that means monitoring your own emotions after various forms of online communications and modifying them: If you feel a little drained or misunderstood after a lengthy text, that's certainly data to take seriously. Just as we would approach any topic that impacts on our wellbeing, we need to take a moment to notice, reflect and make small and deliberate changes to bring ourselves into line with the technology, rather than waiting until we have a crisis to prompt us to do so.
