Hindrance to Effective Communication
Hindrance to Effective Communication
New technology such as smart phones should be a great asset and a powerful aid to helping us work more efficiently. We can respond to urgent emails on the go, refer to useful websites and look up quick facts.
However, these gadgets, as well helping us, can also prove to be a hindrance providing information overload and constant interruptions. We receive so many emails and are exposed to so much information that it can be hard to distil what is actually important and what isn’t. We fill our brains with clutter and lose the ability to focus on our priorities and spend our time responding to trivial emails. We think we are multi-tasking but actually we are becoming less productive.
We read each email but don’t always process the information we need. As a result, we risk irritating the sender by asking them to remind us what they said or to send the email again. More worryingly, we allow ourselves to be distracted from more important tasks by the seeming urgency of each email that comes in.
This information overload doesn’t only impact the way we process information ourselves but can also have a negative impact on the way others perceive us. It is all too easy to give the impression that you are not listening to the other person. It can be quite obvious even on the telephone that you are distracted by your inbox rather than giving the speaker your full attention. In a face-to-face meeting, of course, it is only too apparent when the person you are talking to is distracted by their smart phone rather than focusing on the content of the meeting.
In the past several years, texting and instant messaging have become phenomena that few of us have been able to escape. Though most popular with the younger generations, it is becoming increasingly common to see people of all ages absorbed in silent conversations on their cell phones. The availability of constant, instant communication makes many
New technology such as smart phones should be a great asset and a powerful aid to helping us work more efficiently. We can respond to urgent emails on the go, refer to useful websites and look up quick facts.
However, these gadgets, as well helping us, can also prove to be a hindrance providing information overload and constant interruptions. We receive so many emails and are exposed to so much information that it can be hard to distil what is actually important and what isn’t. We fill our brains with clutter and lose the ability to focus on our priorities and spend our time responding to trivial emails. We think we are multi-tasking but actually we are becoming less productive.
We read each email but don’t always process the information we need. As a result, we risk irritating the sender by asking them to remind us what they said or to send the email again. More worryingly, we allow ourselves to be distracted from more important tasks by the seeming urgency of each email that comes in.
This information overload doesn’t only impact the way we process information ourselves but can also have a negative impact on the way others perceive us. It is all too easy to give the impression that you are not listening to the other person. It can be quite obvious even on the telephone that you are distracted by your inbox rather than giving the speaker your full attention. In a face-to-face meeting, of course, it is only too apparent when the person you are talking to is distracted by their smart phone rather than focusing on the content of the meeting.
In the past several years, texting and instant messaging have become phenomena that few of us have been able to escape. Though most popular with the younger generations, it is becoming increasingly common to see people of all ages absorbed in silent conversations on their cell phones. The availability of constant, instant communication makes many