http://cac.ophony.org/2008/09/18/reading-the-cold-air-negative-social-vibes-and-hot-chocolate/ Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://cac.ophony.org/2008/09/18/reading-the-cold-air-negative-social-vibes-and-hot-chocolate/comment-page-1/#comment-37059 James Drogan Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:31:23 +0000 http://cac.ophony.org/?p=596#comment-37059 In a world increasingly marked by a decline in the number of communications channels in use (e.g., what does body language mean in an e-mail communication?) it could well be that the quality of communication will fall.  Indeed, my hypothesis, reflecting anecdotal evidence from scanning e-mails at my institution, is that this is happening.And on top of this, there is no air to read that might allow us to counteract this decline in quality.As the quality of communications falls so does the quality of our decisions.Perhaps I'm an old fuddy-duddy,  but the new rules of communication enabled by the technology seem, from time-to-time, to have deleterious effect on quality of communications.  Quantity is going up; quality is going down.  I don't, by the way, mean to tar all technology-enabled communications with this brush.  Reading the air is a wonderful metaphor and explains why I prefer teaching in the classroom.But what do we do about this?  Is there nuance in the new forms of communication that is the equivalent of Yukiko's air?  If we find it, can we teach it?  And if we teach it, will it stick? In a world increasingly marked by a decline in the number of communications channels in use (e.g., what does body language mean in an e-mail communication?) it could well be that the quality of communication will fall.  Indeed, my hypothesis, reflecting anecdotal evidence from scanning e-mails at my institution, is that this is happening.And on top of this, there is no air to read that might allow us to counteract this decline in quality.As the quality of communications falls so does the quality of our decisions.Perhaps I’m an old fuddy-duddy,  but the new rules of communication enabled by the technology seem, from time-to-time, to have deleterious effect on quality of communications.  Quantity is going up; quality is going down.  I don’t, by the way, mean to tar all technology-enabled communications with this brush.  Reading the air is a wonderful metaphor and explains why I prefer teaching in the classroom.But what do we do about this?  Is there nuance in the new forms of communication that is the equivalent of Yukiko’s air?  If we find it, can we teach it?  And if we teach it, will it stick?

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