Communication

Non verbal- The first part of this assignment was to communicate without anything verbal. I thought it would be more fun and challenging if I waited to try it out today. I had a few friends over today to watch the NFL draft and decided to try this out with them. I only told 2 of them. I started this as soon as the draft started and it made it very difficult on me seeing everyone communicate with each other and not being able to verbally join in the conversations. They would ask me certain questions about what player I felt was going to be picked and was unable to answer and would just shrug my shoulders. I must admit it was a bit frustrating at times. I found myself laughing a lot and making a lot of hand jesters. I think more than anything, the hardest part to me was just knowing that I couldn't say anything and that being in mind made me more frustrated. Other than that, I think my friends who were unaware of what I was doing found it frustrating when they would talk to me and I wouldn't answer them verbally. Once I told them they found it amusing. I found it somewhat difficult. I think it would've been more difficult if I were to have tried this experiment on a 1 on 1 basis with a single individual. If this were two cultures meeting for the first time, I feel that it would be extremely difficult when first introduced. Once they get a feel for one another, I feel that the communication would be much easier. The reason I say this is because when my 5 year old son met my little cousin of the same age met for the first time late last year, my son spoke only english while my cousin spoke strictly spanish. After an hour together they knew what games to play with each other and got along very well. I was very surprised in how well they understood each other. I felt that was the perfect example for this situation.

No physical establishment- I found this part of the assignment extremely difficult. At first I felt it was going to be very easy by laying down on the couch and keeping my hand by my side so that I was unable to make any hand jesters. Instead I found myself wanting to use my shoulders and head at times. What I found the most difficult was actually moving my eyebrows at times when talking. I knew I couldn't move anything else but caught myself twice moving my eyebrows. My friends found this part easier because I could tell them anything but made it more frustrating on me just concentrating on not making any physical movements. It made me feel very stiff and uncomfortable. It says a lot in the comfort we are when communicating. I would say that this would be more difficult for the cultures for the individual that is speaking rather than the person listening. I do feel there are some people that would have difficulties reading body language. Some might have to do with different facial expressions and different jesters certain cultures have. An advantage when it comes to not being able to reading body language would be when someone is multi tasking. It would allow the individual who is multi tasking work and take care of his tasks without allowing the other individual feeling like his not getting all the attention.

Part 3- I think written language would definitely would've helped in the non verbal part of this assignment. Especially in the type of society we live in today where we depend a lot on text messaging and emails. Its an easy and effective way to communicate. As long as the language in the writing is the same, its very easy to understand. And in todays technology we are easily able to convert any type of writing into other languages. Morse code was an international way to communicate years ago but now we can convert almost any language into the one we can understand with our technology.