Solving the digital body language conundrum

“Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.” Samuel Butler

We’re all writing more than ever. Texts, emails, tweets, ‘Facebooking’, ‘Skypeing’ and ‘BBMing’ all involve using the written word to communicate with contacts.  Not since before the advent of the telephone (when writing was in most cases the only way to communicate remotely) have we relied on the written word so much.

Despite occasional protestations that it was better in the ‘old’ days, most of us now rely on and enjoy the digital communication that dominates our professional and personal lives. Its ease and efficiency has changed communications, but how sure are we that we’re able to convey the true meaning of what we’re trying to say through words alone, especially when digital communication often values, or demands, brief, snappy, instant messages?

When we converse face-to-face, or even over the phone, we’re able to convey meaning in so many ways: a nod and a wink to suggest a secret, a whisper to suggest tenderness and trust, a raised voice to convey anger.  Sometimes, it’s possible to work out someone’s mood on the phone by what they don’t say or from the speed at which they speak.

With written communication, these mechanisms are unavailable to us. When we write, we rely on the reader to pick up meaning through words alone. While we might think it’s perfectly obvious what we mean, it often isn’t and confusion, misinterpretation and offence can be caused.

We think that conveying tone in business communication is now so important that we carried out some research, looking at how people get across what they mean in writing, whether they are confident they can do so digitally and what happens when it goes wrong.

The picture our research paints is of a nation ill at ease in saying what they mean in the digital age. One in four of us are not very or not confident at all in conveying tone using digital media. Even among young adults (the so called ‘digital natives’) fewer than one in five describe themselves as ‘very confident’.

A quarter of us have run in to problems or caused ourselves great worry and angst because of misinterpretation via text. Our survey shows that people have caused offence, fallen out with colleagues or lost business because the tone of the message they sent, was not the tone the reader received.

Indeed, a cautionary tale comes from New Zealand where a manager was once sacked in 2009 for causing ‘disharmony in the workplace’ because her staff were repeatedly upset by her ‘intimidating’ use of CAPITAL LETTERS and red text. (This case also raises the whole issue of misinterpretation in internal communications and how to avoid it. Stay tuned to this blog for more on this later)

But, being ingenious homo-sapiens we’ve found ways to adapt and evolve the way we write to cope, through the use of slang, acronyms (lol, OMG etc) and the freaky offspring of the text generation, the ‘emoticon’ . While these devices are not perfect, our research suggests they are playing an increasingly important part in our personal and professional communications…something that would have been unheard of even ten years ago.

Kisses (xxx) and emoticons are the most popular way to convey tone. Women, perhaps unsurprisingly, use more of both than men. But men prefer slang to women. Interestingly – and an analysis of this is beyond the remit of this article – Londoners are nearly twice as likely to use ‘kisses’ than Scots!

Whatever means we use, all these mechanisms are trying in some way to mimic body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. These are likely to become more and more important as professional communication moves away from a reliance on email – which at least gives us space to articulate ourselves – and embraces mobile technology and social media – which normally don’t.

Indeed, it seems that mobile phone companies are ready for this emoticon explosion as newer smartphones come equipped with a whole host of ready to use symbols. No longer are people restricted to a smiley, sad or ‘winky’ face; they can now convey anger, surprise, ‘foot in mouth’, undecided, ‘lips are sealed’ and a whole host of other emotions at a touch of a button.

Could it be that something that was once seen as a juvenile bit of fun could turn out to be a saviour from the embarrassment, upset and strife that a misinterpreted message can bring?

1930’s British politician Pearl Strachan Heard’s warning is perhaps more relevant now than ever given the opportunities we have to miscommunicate these days: “Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.”