Face-to-face communication in a techno world

A friend of mine reports that he and his college-age son now communicate through texting and email at least five times a week.

"That's more than he ever talked to me when he lived at home," my friend says.

Another friend tells of a recent texting experience with a colleague. She received a rather cryptic message that suggested the sender was at least frustrated, if not downright angry. Her own electronic inquiry in reply and her colleague's response did little to clear the air.

Finally, in her own frustration, she walked down the hall and discussed things face to face. Ten minutes of technology-fueled confusion was cleared up by one minute of talk.

In a current professional journal, a counselor at a major university writes that they have formed support groups for "technology addicts." It seems there is a small but growing group of students who are so absorbed in communicating over the internet and through the university email system that they are neglecting "real" relating.

"What these kids need," suggests the counselor, "is to sit down in front of each other rather than in front of a computer monitor."

There is no doubt we are in the midst of another revolution in communication. The ability to sit at a keyboard and instantly send off an message to a friend or colleague, or the potential for having a computer enabled "conversation" with someone on the other side of the building or the other side of the world, is changing once again the whole way we think of communicating with each other.

Often this technology increases both the amount and speed of our communicating. And it can be just plain fun, too.

There is, however, danger in becoming too enamored with email and its variations.

Accurate and meaningful communication involves much more than simply words.

Though we are often unaware of it, we also communicate through tone of voice, facial expression, body posture, eye contact and various other means. In some situations we even communicate through touch and smell.

Especially when emotions are involved, the very meaning of our words can change depending on such nonverbal communication variables. Anger, tenderness, sadness, love, fear - we speak of our emotions more with these other languages than with mere words.

Even a telephone conversation can seem incomplete when we are talking about matters that are emotion laden.

In fact, I've talked to veterans of teleconferencing - where we're hooked up by both audio and video - who maintain they still feel something is missing.

We humans are complex creatures. And our communicating is more than a bit complex as well. We need to be cautious about limiting our definition of communication to fit the limits of our technology. And we want to be cautious about equating the quantity of our words and the speed at which they flow back and forth with the quality of our communication.

Real communicating, I suspect, will often mean a slow, inconvenient, laborious and sometimes uncomfortable process that requires technology no more sophisticated than a quiet room and a comfortable chair. No modem required.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."