 It's a little bit cliche and boring to start off a talk about technology and communication by saying This is the phone that I used when I grew up So let's just ignore the fact that it was in fact exactly like this in my house growing up And it was very satisfying when you had an angry hang up to be able to do that and you can't do that anymore But let's let's move past that little cliche introduction and let's fast forward a little bit too Just for a reference point that the year that I started teaching online, which was 2006 Let's take a look at the technology then in 2006 and see where we were at Obviously we'd come a long way since that old rotary wall hanging phone, right? If you were in 2006 and you had a cell phone it probably looked something like this. It was probably a flip phone This was the new Advanced razor phone that was out at that time and it was really fancy really cool It had really good images as you can tell there or if you were super cool You might have had the LG chocolate which was had that slide function also very cool, right? You would have had one of these because smartphones did not exist at that time literally They'd not been invented yet the iPhone the first iPhone would come out in 2007. So even in 2006 Technology was very very different. You would have had Facebook It probably would it look like this and at that time you would have had to hand a dot edu email address to sign up for it It wasn't just open to the public You had to have an educational email address because it was limited to just students for people within a dot edu address In fact, most of the time at that time you would have been most more likely if not as likely to have had a MySpace page instead if anybody remembers MySpace and Just the internet speeds. This is just an example of 2007 or 2017 This is the change in internet speeds over just that ten-year period, right? Imagine where we're at today and how that has continued to increase So it's not difficult to see the technology has changed over time, right? The technology involved in communication has changed We've come a long way since cave paintings and carrier pigeons and even a long way since 2006 and using flip phones and and and MySpace right so Technology is a massive part of communication Today a massive part of the way that we communicate today So we want to spend a little bit of time talking about technology and communication and the impact that it has and some considerations that we mean need to think about as we incorporate technology more and more into our communication lives So let's start off by talking about what we mean and where all this intersects We have what we call EMC sometimes. It's called CMC. EMC stands for electronically mediated communication And our CMC would just then be computer mediated communication They both reference the same thing but but I tend to use EMC. So what is EMC? It's very simply communication that occurs through the medium of an electronic device medium is just another word for channel So it's a method through which we communicate. It's the how we're communicating So EMC or CMC is really any communication that would occur through the use of an electronic device or a computer device and CMC So it's as broad as that and and obviously it's it's a huge factor today that we communicate Electronically probably almost as much as we do face-to-face, right? So there are some things we need to consider some things we need to keep in mind About using mediated communication first and foremost there are different types, right? Even though we broadly classified as electronically mediated communication. They're really different types They're you know, it's a little different when we're communicating with a phone as opposed to our computer or a you know A camera maybe even or using a TV now we can broadcast through YouTube and on TV So there's all kinds of different ways and they all have different Features different advantages different disadvantages. So we need to keep that in mind that as we're using different types of Electronically mediated communication that there will be different positives and negatives that go along with that different Opportunities and different challenges with each different types So they also bring with them different considerations EMC in general and different the different types of mediated communication in particular Bring with them different considerations. One of the first ones is what we call leanness There's a you know philosophy in communication that says is this channel rich or channel lean Channel rich are things like face-to-face communication because we have access to all the different channels Not just my words, right? But you have access to the tone of my voice my facial expression by gestures even the context of the environment in which it's taking place You have access to all of this and can factor all of that into your interpretation of that message right it all gives you different clues as to what that person means and why they're saying it and What implications that might have for them and for you and it's just all kinds of of data points that you can use to Interpret more accurately that communication that's and so face-to-face communication is the most Channel rich that we can really get because we have access to all those different data points You scale it back a little bit when you're talking about something like a video call or communicating over zoom You still have access to their words and their tone of voice and maybe their facial expressions But you may not be able to see their total environment. You're not seeing my environment right now I'm using a green screen. So this is not what's actually behind me I'm controlling different aspects of that. You can't see anything outside of this box, right? So so you're not seeing everything, but you're seeing more than you would in some other context So it's still on the on the scale of channel lean to channel rich. It's relatively rich this type of communication is You get to the telephone and again, you're pulling back a few more channels So it's more channel lean you have the words you have the tone of voice and things like that But you can't see their facial expressions. You can't see whether or not they're doing the dishes while they're talking to you You can't see all these other aspects So it's more lean than for example a video call or face-to-face conversation And then when you get down to text or email things like that you really are limited to mostly just the language or just the words, right? You may have some ways that we try and substitute some nonverbal indicators in there through emojis or through, you know, using all caps to indicate shouting or something like that But for the most part, it's it's much much more lean for example than a face-to-face conversation a video call even a telephone call So it's more on the channel lean. So we need to keep in mind depending on what kind of Mediated communication we may be using what kind of electronic device or EMC we're using There could be variances in the leanness involved there and that may you know Make a difference in how we how we phrase something. I'm for example very sarcastic So that does not communicate well over text or email unless you know me really well and kind of have that have my voice in your head Being sarcastic So I need to be aware of that when I'm texting or emailing with somebody that doesn't know me really really well I need to pull back on the sarcasm meter here a little bit and and be a little more straightforward and consider my language differently in that constant in that context than I would in like a face-to-face conversation or even a conversation with a different person so Different types of EMC have different elements of leanness to them We also need to keep in mind that many aspects of EMC tend to be Asynchronous many types of EMC tend to be asynchronous by which we mean they are not taking place in real time So it could be that you're sending a message now But the other person's not reading it or maybe not focusing on it for hours or days or however long later, right? It's not going to be an immediate response if I'm texting or emailing somebody necessarily now We may expect that we may look for those little dots that show up that show the person is responding or whatever But those are asynchronous forms of communication So we may need to be a little patient and if we have a message that needs Synchronous response or synchronous communication that we need to choose a different channel We need to choose something other than texting or emailing if we think that's not going to be fast enough We're not going to give us the what we need from that so we need to be aware of the the variances in Synchronicity for the different channels of EMC as well. We also need to remember permanence Once we send something electronically There's a potential that it's out there forever My mom always said even when I was a kid we didn't have all this She said if you don't want somebody to read it then don't write it down And that's very much true in today's day and age if you write something in an email in a text Or if you put something on a video and put it out there in the world or a photo There's the potential that it will be out there forever So consider that before you send that nasty comment in an email to your colleague or to you know Just post something nasty on on social media or something potentially argumentative on social media It's not to say that you shouldn't have the freedom to express yourself But there can be consequences that come with freedom of expression, right? So just to give you an example. This is a meme you may have seen I don't know it's out around Christmas time usually and and we see this occasionally and the Reason I bring it up here is that I actually know this person I know the person in this picture and so I can tell you a little backstory behind this This is not what he looks like real. I mean it is him, but it's not he doesn't he doesn't look like this on a regular basis This was a an image that he put together for some goofy Christmas cards that he and some friends of ours wanted to put together and send out Years ago and so they got dressed up. He doesn't he doesn't none of this is really who he is I mean this this is a creepy picture This is objectively weird right and creepy and you thinking then this guy's got some issues I promise he doesn't it's just a picture and it was fun But he put it on his Facebook page again like a hundred years ago and Facebook was fairly new But somebody grabbed it turned it into a meme and now it's out there all the time if you do a search for creepy Christmas cat guy Imagine you'll find this come up very early in the image results. So He put it out through that and now it's out there forever And it doesn't really impact him a great deal because this does not look like him really today At all again. He doesn't rest like this. He doesn't look like this in real life So he's not really recognizable unless you know him But but that's not true for everybody if you when when you put an image when you put a post when you put a Comment out there in the world on on in an electronic form The potential is there that it will be there forever So we need to be aware of that and keep that idea of permanence in mind So that's true for all types of mediated communication whether it's texting or emailing or whatever But there are also some you know We could narrow it down more specifically to social media a little bit And we need to think about social media as well as communicators and just a couple things I wanted to identify here for you as we think about social media first Well, when it comes to social media, we also need to keep relational quality in mind Just because we have a lot of something doesn't mean that it's best Right or that it's the most unique so just because we have a lot of friends or a lot of followers or we put a lot of content out on Social media we produce a lot of words Doesn't mean that it's good stuff, right doesn't mean those are quality relationships And doesn't mean that that we're just because we communicate a lot with somebody doesn't mean we're necessarily Increasing the relational quality of that particular relationship either so we need to be conscientious of both There's nothing wrong with quantity, but we also need to be conscientious of developing Quality in that relationship developing quality relationships and make sure that social media doesn't Distort our view of what that means and that we continue to focus on relational quality We also need to remember that social media just like any other kind of communication requires Communicating competently or if you remember from a previous video. We talked about communication competence boils down to Essentially communicating appropriately and effectively so when we communicate Appropriately and effectively then then we have communication competence. Okay, so in social media. There are a couple things that will help us Gear toward communication competence first is to be careful what you post again When you put a comment out there, it's potentially there forever that idea of permanence So so be cautious be careful what we post and certainly about personal information and things like that So that could be true in the workplace. We don't want to post anything. That's going to Detract from our professionalism and things like that, but it's also just true in our personal lives because Right, so we want to be careful what we post. We also want to be considerate of others We need to think about others because again, this is public information To some degree theoretically right social media even if you have it restricted to your friends or just particular people It's still that's that's a public venue enough to Involve a lot of other people so we need to be considerate by that We mean we need to respect others need for an undivided attention So even if we're offline and we're talking to somebody we need to be considered of being focused on them and not on our phone Working on social media or hanging on hanging out in social media. We need to keep our tone civil in social media It's not an excuse to you know to start lashing out of people just because we're not physically present with them Be mindful of bystanders both again paying attention to people when they're around you in a physical sense But also be mindful of bystanders you get caught in the crossfire of this whole social media thing People get drawn into these things in between the social connections So we need to be mindful of them and then we need to also just you know Consider that relational quality again balance our EMC and our FaceTime with people Don't get so caught up in social media that we that we do so to the exclusion of these face-to-face relationships We need to be alert for misunderstandings We know that misunderstandings happen a lot on social media You may type something one way and somebody reads it in a completely different way And and they just interpret it in a completely different way a lot of times again It's very channel lean so they don't have the context and they're not in your brain So they can't understand exactly so we need to be very cautious when we post things about how it could Potentially be interpreted by other people and and be aware of that potential for misunderstandings I would also encourage you to have a cool-down period when it comes to social media as far as communication competence We tend to have a tendency to do that dissent disinhibition effect to reply Immediately and emotionally without regard to what other impacts that might have in that doesn't mean you can't express yourself But we ought to You know have a cool-down period take at least five minutes after you read something that makes you angry and before you post something Make sure that you've considered all the different implications Maybe even sleep on it overnight is always my suggestion And then in the morning if you still feel strongly about posting it then go ahead But but we need to have a cool-down period and not just respond reflexively and out of an entirely emotional state Without really considering the all the consequences of what might result from our own post Just because somebody else post something nasty does not give us permission to do so in kind and doesn't mean there won't be consequences for us So communication technology is constantly changing right it's always changing It's changed so much as we indicated from when I was a kid through just the time that I started teaching online since 2006 It's almost entirely different now, and it will be ten years from now Technology and communication is so integrated into our lives, and it changes so rapidly that we absolutely Need to keep these considerations in mind and be as competent as we can be in EMC as we are with face-to-face communication If you have questions about technology and communication where these intersect the different implications that might have please feel free to email me I'd love to hear from you via email and and chat about this some more in the meantime I do hope you will give great consideration to your EMC habits and your communication competence as it relates to electronically mediated communication and And just be mindful of that as we move forward because it is a part of the entire package of competent communication