Face-To-Face vs. Electronic Communication

Communication Electronic communication such as texting and emailing are not as effective as talking face-to-face with someone. Premises/Data: Studies have showed that without face-to-face interaction, the lack of nonverbal cues, facial emotions prevents successful communication and hinders growth in a relationship. One study of preteens at a summer camp found that with just five days without electronics, the children showed improvement in there nonverbal communication skills (Uhls et al., 2014).

We already know that non-verbal communication is a significant portion of communication, that when presented with a person face-to-face, as little as 7% of communication was verbal (Yaffe, 2011). Thus, these preteens were improving immediately their ability to comprehend what is in many cases the majority of communication messages. Studies of virtual teams have found that people are even inclined to interpret email text for non-verbal messages.

The problem with doing so is that we tend to use shorthand for this, for example interpreting direct communication as anger, when it might not be (Cheshin, Rafaeli & Bos, 2011). Furthermore, it has been found that it is more difficult to manage intercultural differences in electronic communications -- we struggle enough face-to-face, but there is a need for more contextual clues in intercultural communication, therefore we are even more challenged to interpret intercultural electronic communication (Bitti & Garotti, 2011).

In essence, face-to-face communication allows us to express and interpret a fuller range of emotions and concepts. While we may have adapted to improve our ability to interpret electronic communications, it remains inferior to face-to-face. Warrants: The first warrant is that we have all experienced both face-to-face and electronic communication. The concepts here would be foreign to someone who had never experienced electronic communication before.

The second warrant is that the audience and speaker both believe the research that non-verbal communication is important, and that we understand how we have adapted to electronic communications. One of the unstated issues here is with respect to young children who were born into the era of electronic communications. Having never learned in a strictly face-to-face world, the findings might not hold for them, but the warrant here is that everybody believes that the premise holds across all cultures and even across all ages.

There is another warrant here as well, an important one, that everybody has some agreement about what "effective" means in the context of communication. It is a fairly vague word that could mean a lot of things. Normally, to evaluate effectiveness it is necessary to operationalize it, unless the speaker and the audience are in general agreement as to what effective looks like in the context of interpersonal communication.

So it is assumed here that, in broad, that agreement exists, and includes the ability to understand the full range of emotions and context that go along with the actual words used in the communication. Backing: The premise is backed with data. The warrants are underlying assumptions on which it is presumed there is agreement. Thus, the warrants are implied here, as explained above. If a warrant is by definition "assumed," then it flows that the warrant would not be supported with data.

Rebuttal: The rebuttal here would be that humans have adapted better than has been shown in the research to non-verbal communication. The younger you are, the more likely you are to have adapted, and that this is not yet captured in the data. The data is overwhelming, but there remain gaps in the data. As a new phenomenon, electronic communication is something that we are continuing to adapt to.

The argument above is based on the best available information, but the area has not received all that much study, and thus there are gaps in our knowledge. Moreover, the scholarship on the subject lags our own evolution with respect to interpreting electronic communication. The conclusion might be overstating matters, and might not apply at all to someone who was raised with electronic communication from a very early age.

Another obvious rebuttal is that the studies ignore the fact that we can have face-to-face electronic communication, and in fact we commonly do. It is possible that the entire issue will be moot in the future, when almost all electronic communication is done face-to-face. A third rebuttal is that textual communication is not new. Indeed, the written word does have the power to convey intense emotions, subtlety and all of the elements of communication.

While not everybody can write like Shakespeare, we are more capable of conveying emotion, nuance and complexity with.