The Depersonalised World
With a growing dependency for online communication, our face-to-face interactions become less frequent every day. Does this mean our ability to read non-verbal cues is diminishing too?
It wasn’t too long ago that to talk to someone (in real time) the only options were face to face or over the phone. Now, in our increasingly ‘depersonalised world’, it’s often said that we’re losing some basic skills. Like being able to positively engage with people in the physical realm.
Some argue that it doesn’t matter. Do we really need the ability to interact face to face in the future? Consider some of the statistics below.
Right now, there are over 2.27 billion monthly active Facebook users. And there are one billion people using Instagram monthly. Even more, in Australia, mobile banking usage in 2018 increased to 46.5%, beating branch-visits which are at 45.1% and falling yearly.
Even more, for cost and business efficiency reasons, more and more businesses almost force us to use their on-line support services instead of contacting them face to face or by phone. By 2021, over 2.14 billion people worldwide are expected to buy goods and services online, up from 1.66 billion global digital buyers in 2016.
More and more, we can exist on a daily basis and fulfil our essential needs for survival – procuring the basics for food, clothing and shelter – without having physically interacted or communicated with another human being.
What does the ‘depersonalised world’ mean for us?
There are many advantages for communicating electronically in favour of face to face or voice, such as convenience and price. However, as a Psychologist who studies the human condition, I believe we are entering a period where an entire generation of people will critically miss how to read emotions correctly.
This will affect everyone’s innate capacity to demonstrate appropriate self-awareness and so build healthy social networks (in the real world) and develop sustaining relationships.
Human beings are social animals. We have evolved over millions of years to be cooperative, shaping our skills thorough nuanced physical cues and interactions. For our health and wellbeing, it’s important that every individual maintains an ability to interact on a personal level.
Our Approach – Context, Decision, Implementation (CDI model)
Part of the Novoture approach is to work with businesses sharpening interpersonal skills. All of us misread someone at one time or another, and we work with you to ensure this situation is minimised. The artificial world of connections does not need to interfere with our ability to be self-aware and develop and manage important personal and business relationships.
How does our model work?
Think of the CDI model relevant to having a difficult face to face conversation:
- Context: We work with you to understand the appropriate visual, vocal and other cues (eg situational) that occur in the majority of your interactions with the individual(s) concerned.
- Decision: We help you understand the necessary signs, choices and potential scenarios that you should take into account in choosing how best to respond.
- Implementation: We assist in determining how you strategise your timing, nature of response (eg vocal/visual) and the best situation for you to implement this, to optimal effect.
We look forward to talking with you soon.