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More human

…people still prefer to listen and interact rather than reading on a computer screen. It’s more human.

fappleWhy take away more of the human factor from interactions than you need to, like an email over a phone call or even better a skype call? I’m not against emailing, I just prefer face time or at least talking.

Sure, lots of times an email is more efficient, especially if you need to get through to more than one person with the same info.

But storytelling and listening to stories is a baked in feature each one of us still has. We listen for tone of voices, look at hand and body language, along with facial expressions.

I’ve heard some people who’ve had face smoothing Botox shots can’t always convey what they want to. By paralyzing wrinkle causing small facial muscles they’ve become facially less expressive. Sometimes they aren’t perceived the way they want to because they’re sending out mixed signals. So what the listener hears doesn’t match what the listener sees.

That can happen sometimes too with emails because reading an email doesn’t always give the same message to the reader that the writer was intending to give. For example, “Thanks a lot!” can be said in ways that convey different meanings, whereas when it’s written, the reader has to make assumptions about what the writer means.

Descriptive language was around a long time before writing, with people using stories to pass information to each other. Someone is more likely to remember information from a story than a list. And a story form is more likely to be used in a conversation than a bullet point list.

Stories don’t have to be long. A well told story can be only a couple of sentences that provide the necessary details clearly and maybe with emotion. And while talking the speaker can quickly make clarifications as needed based on how the listener is responding.

Not everyone is a good storyteller, but people still prefer to listen and interact rather than reading on a computer screen. It’s more human. At least for now.