Sign(s) of Our Times, What am I missing* here? In/mis/dis-communicado - Part 1

A Preface, Pre-fix: Prefaced, as in an intro to a larger subject, that of communication, followed here, I mean right here followed by a Pre-fix, applied here to demo how words can have different meanings, impact simply by fixing a prefix to the beginning (as opposed to a "suffix", an add-on for effect, but that's for later, another post, postscript), and "Pre-fix" a reference to offer some corrections, improvements, addendums to your communications, whether they be in spoken, written, or other nonverbal forms (the latter to include gestures, finger pointing, signing, emoji's), even reading between the lines (as in interpretation)...all this prior to speaking, writing, or sending a string of emoji's, sort of a variation on the theme "autocorrect". Lest you or I thought I was out of material, after posting 300 here, here comes some early morning news articles provoking my stream of consciousness which in turn will unleash a whole bunch of posts. Starting with this mini-series on some dimensions of communication which, while being revised, updated, remain ripe for misinterpretation. Those which can easily be underappreciated and 'disrupters'. 

Fresh Start, Clean Slate: While I already talked about the first part here (January 2nd, "Fresh Start Effect, FSE") both in elaboration and in abbreviated form (relevant here), the latter part came to me, myself, more recently through a new variation on the old toy, "Etch-A-Sketch"', in the context of a devotional, of all things. Collectively, I took it as a good 'sign' this morning, after contemplating what and how to cover this topic in both a meaningful and economical manner (i.e., being a good steward of this space and your time), the\ first commercial I heard upon starting my car included a "Fresh Start Program" brought to you and me by an enterprising group whose brand, mission, is to get you a "fresh start....clean slate" with the IRS. Near and dear to all of US, this following some of us adding to our debt burden over the holidays and in anticipation of the season next--tax prep! A well placed, timed attention getting commercial. Effective communication in a short space of time. I took it as a good sign.

So Little Time, not Enough Space: Together which result in attempts to abbreviate, truncate language to a bare minimum. Which itself is nothing new, starting on cave walls and on through hieroglyphics, our contemporary applications, such as texting, emoji's, tweeting, finger pointing (the latter of which seems  more on the rise due to mask wearing and a societal preference for placing blame outwards)...Attempts to get the max amount of message as well as impact in an increasingly smaller space, kind of a parallel to microchips (which, of course, also in short supply these days). I've had to self-edit many times in order for my message to fit in this space as well as your assumed attention spans. I find myself doing a similar thing in my office -- prepping a message before a session, responding to a text, or an email. And even then, even when my message is conveyed as planned, especially when it is delivered to more than one, I can get...

"It's not what he Memes" Or, in days gone by, "OK, that's what he said, but that's not what he means!" As in, there's almost always room for interpretation. For reading between the lines. Even when I said what I mean and I mean what I said...This, occurring even when we in modern times talk increasingly through symbols for convenience of time and sometimes just to be clever, through a string of emojis, even after being careful to not send the wrong one (who hasn't innocently done this, having then, almost immediately, send an "Oops!"). This, when we have been talking through masks and at increasing distances. And through more gestures, other forms of body language, eye winks, blinks -- all of which add up to more room for distortion, misinterpretation. Measures of which can even be found on intelligence/personality tests, and the call for updates, revisions, based on differential experiences, ages, time and place...

Deletion, Completion: For instance, as 'simple' straightforward a subtest of nonverbal intelligence on an older version of the "Wechsler Intelligence" series, where you as a subject are shown some pictures and told to find the missing part, if younger children through teens (and many young adults now) were shown the old type rotary phone which was missing part of the chord, they would not even be able to name the object in question, let alone the missing detail. Many verbal items also get updated, either because of the words find themselves out of use, or the ideas being conveyed themselves 'fall out of fashion'. Trendy. The other type of 'test', albeit less objective, leaving even more room for interpretation, is one asking subjects to either fill in the blank, or "Finish the sentence", which is used by some practitioners (hopefully not in isolation of other info) to project personality traits, kind of like they do on the TV show "Family Feud" -- while laughable on this show, can become divisive elsewhere ("You're always putting words in my mouth...think you can read my mind...don't let me finish...please, just listen...") Happens a lot with texting as well, in my experience, with the increased demand and opportunity to project onto the sender what they were trying to convey. Let alone those that lacked...

Pure, Sure Recall: (Well, maybe not so much) Another subtest on most major intelligence tests, one that taps an area important to daily functioning, effective interactions (aka effective communication), "Working Memory", is one that tests pure recall, rote memory, otherwise known as "Digit Span". Interestingly enough, it is a subtest which has probably undergone the least revision. But errors on the subtests of this subtest (e.g., the ones that require you to either repeat the series said aloud to you forwards, backwards, or in numerical order), can give the psychometrician testing you a glimpse into how you, yourself might be apt to revise messages from others, especially if any memory is required. That is, one can make (just like everyday life, what we all do, what others do to us) errors of omission (omitting info, simply forgetting, but perhaps pretending otherwise, or trying to cover up), errors of commission (putting numbers or other info when/where it does not belong, common among different eyewitness accounts, for example), or combinations thereof. UGH (as in "Ugh).

"Getting the Picture?" Or, "Do I need to add some details?" BTW: If you don't correct, double check the "auto corrector", you can really get mis-interpreted, followed by some real 'dis'course, I imagine...

*"Post scriptum" (P.S.) Adding "out on" after "missing", brings us another meaning, a type of deletion that also has relationship repercussions, and is currently represented as FOMO in most texting, tweets, etc., and, of course, "Fear Of Being Left Out" as FOBLO; whereas MAD might be inserted into our text lexicon as "Missing A Detail" and, in turn MAID "Missing An Important Detail. Just a suggestion, to gain your attention, if not approval.