e-miscommunication

I have been thinking a lot about miscommunication when it comes to e-communication like emailing and texting.  These forms of communication have revolutionized the way we connect with one another.  People have been reconnecting with friends from their hometowns, schools, past jobs.  I connect with friends on a more regular basis now who not so long ago were only exchanging brief sentiments in annual holiday cards.  I’m reconnecting with friends who got lost over time and distance.  We can correspond back and forth in one day what could’ve taken months by what’s now referred to as “snail mail”, or cost lots of money by phone.

The challenge is that e-communication can lend itself to misunderstandings.  While communicating in this manner we lack the visual and aural cues that constitute a huge part of communication.  We can’t see each other’s body language or facial expressions.  We don’t hear each other’s tone of voice.  Hasn’t this always been true with the written word, as in writing letters?  Yes, but I think the difference is we tend to hit that send button pretty quickly.  Sometimes before checking that what we’ve written is actually expressing what we want to say.