The influence of social media on non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication. We all use it, mostly without being conscious that we are using it. Your body language might betray your emotions when you are trying to hide them. It might reveal the fact that you are lying when you don't want people to know the truth. However, it might also come in very useful when you want to tell someone something which another person within hearing distance is not supposed to hear.

Non-verbal cues often tell you more about a person than verbal language. Not just body language, but also intonation is a very useful cue to tell what a person really means. For example, think about sarcasm. Without non-verbal cues, a person would just take your words literally. However, the intonation usually tells you whether a person uses sarcasm or not.

The importance of non-verbal communication implies a problem in recent life: communication through social media. More and more communication takes place via Hyves, Facebook or Twitter. Using these mediums, non-verbal cues are not visible. It is easy to type something on a social medium while you feel something completely else. Since your body language is not visible to the receiver, he will likely evaluate your words as truthful. The same holds for intonation. This is also not visible on social media, which means it is much harder to recognize sarcasm.

Another problem with social media, is that emotions are not visible. A small solution to this are smileys, which resemble your emotion. However, these smileys might not resemble your true emotion, but just the emotion you want other people to think you experience on a certain moment. Again, the absence of body language forms a problem.

We talked about the phenomenon with assistant professor Martijn Goudbeek. His expertise is in the field of emotions and non-verbal communication. We posed him the question: 'What influence does social media have on non-verbal communication?' His vision on this will be shown in the video below.

What is your opinion on this issue? Will non-verbal communication become less important through the use of social media, or will it eventually become more important again through webcams and comparable new technologies?

Reduction or fine?

The Dutch railways (NS) has plans to invalidate their reduction card between 17pm and 19pm, to avoid busy trains during these rush hours. The initial reaction to this announcement will probably be that it is unfair, since people holding a reduction card pay for this reduction so they should be allowed to use it. Well, fair enough, but apart from this problem, this new rule will carry some other implications.


Suppose a person wants to travel by a train which leaves at 16.30pm and is suppose to arrive at that person's destination at 16.55pm. This does not seem like a problem. However, what if the train is delayed and now arrives at 17.10pm? Technically, this person is travelling in non-reduction time, but he couldn't have known this before he got on the train. So, is he supposed to be fined or not?

Let's make the problem a little more complicated then. What if this person's train leaves at 16.30pm and is supposed to arrive at his destination at 17.10pm? In this case the traveler knows on beforehand that he will be travelling in non-reduction time. However, the largest part of his journey is in the reduction time. Does he have to buy a full-price ticket for the whole journey even though the largest part of it is in the reduction time, or not? Does he have to leave the train at the last stop before 17pm to buy a full-price ticket for the last 10 minutes of his journey?

The same problem exists for the other side of the time border. What if a person has to take a train that leaves at 18.45pm and arrives at his destination at 19.40pm?

Of course, the non-reduction time already exists in the morning. However, this time limit has only one border, since the reduction card now is not valid only before 9am. This still implies the same problem as the person leaving on the 18.45pm train, but does avoid the delayed train problem.

A remaining question is, of course, whether this non-reduction time rule will have a noticeable effect. People who take the train to go to work will still take the train at the same time, since that is the time their working day ends. People that have arrangements in the evenings, will also still take the same train to arrive on time for their arrangements.
Who remain are the people that travel by train to go out for a day. The morning time limit may work for these people, since they might make the decision to leave after 9am instead of earlier. However, these people will probably not travel between 17pm and 19pm anyway. They will probably try to avoid the rush hour anyway, or try to make the best of their day by extending it and not take an early train back.

So, try to weigh off the advantages of the non-reduction time against the disadvantages. Are the advantages worth the trouble?

Hey, you look really good in that outfit!

We have all encountered it more than once. You go to a clothing store and the salesperson tells you how good you look in that outfit you just tried on. The more expensive it is, the better it supposedly looks. We all think that this so-called flattery is not sincere, because the salesperson just wants to sell you something. Right?
Think about it. Of course he or she wants to sell you something, but most salesperson do not get paid on commission, but on a predetermined wage. Besides, they know that you, as a customer, probably expect them to flatter you and expect it to be insincere. However, knowing this, a salesperson might want to be sincere, to make you believe that they actually mean it. This sounds contradictory, but it is not. It is based on trust. If you encounter the same salesperson several times and he has given you a true and fair opinion from the beginning about how the clothes look on you, don't you want to go back to that same salesperson the next time you need clothes? Because you trust his opinion? So that you know you actually do look good in the clothes that you buy?

This does not mean that flattery does not work. Even though people don't think they should believe the positive comments offered by a salesperson, they love to here them. People will believe them because they want to believe them. To make them feel good about themselves. Tell a customer that he looks horrible and he will run away and probably never return. So yes, flattery might be insincere, that much is true. However, before you disregard a compliment right away, just think about it first. Look in the mirror. 'Do I look good? Yes, actually I do.' Sincere compliment accepted.

By the way, you there, behind the screen. You look good reading this blog! You should definitely do that more often!

Smartphone addicts

More and more people are the owners of a smartphone nowadays. All my friends seem to have one and they can't stop laughing at my old, unbreakable phone that works perfectly fine for calling and texting. Apparently, they cannot live without their smartphones anymore. Because what would you do when you can't check your e-mail, your facebook and your twitter accounts at any moment of the day? They all want to be reachable all the time, because what if someone e-mails you and you can only reply an hour later?

It is strange.All these things do not seem to matter when people simply do not have access to them. But all of a sudden, from the moment that people do have access to them, they cannot live without them anymore. Why? What exactly has changed? Right: nothing, except for the person carrying the phone.

I don't feel like any of my friends have any advantage over me for being able to be online always. I never had any problems when I could not immediately reply on an e-mail while they could. In fact, I don't think it really matters when you reply to an e-mail. If there is an emergency, if someone needs me right at a moment, they will call me. By sending an e-mail, a sender (unintendedly) implies that there is no hurry for a reply, a few hours don't make a difference. So why should I be online all the time?

All the functions of a smartphone are, by almost all people, only used for entertainment. And of course there's nothing wrong with that. Sure, it is nice when you have to travel, for example, to be able to use Facebook to kill time. But it is just not something you cannot live without. It is an addiction. And if you think that word makes it sound worse than it is, you're wrong. Recent research showed that using a smartphone might affect both sleep (as you can read in this article ) and relationships.

Last but not least, smartphones can be moodkillers. When I invite my friends over, I only have to wait for the inevitable moment that one of them takes a quick look at her smartphone, reads something funny, ridiculous or otherwise remarkable on twitter, and all my other friends want to see it too. At their own smartphones. And while they're doing that, all start checking their e-mail, Facebook and Twitter accounts yet again. Get the party started.

Scheidegger; we show you how it's not done!

Last night I was watching TV, when I saw this commercial for Scheidegger, an educational institute.




While I watched it, a couple of questions immediately popped in to my head. So, let's analyze this commercial for a bit.

First of all, it is said that more than 1 million people have a diploma of Scheideggers'. Sure, sounds like a lot, but 1 million people out of how many that started a study there?
The commercial continues to say that it is makes complete sense that 1 million people have a diploma. This sounds strange already, because why exactly does that make sense? Well, the explanation according to the commercial: It is because of in-class lectures and personal guidance.
This might sound like a good reason, but think about it. In-class lectures? Doesn't almost every school or university offer those? As for personal guidance, that's no unique feature either. Yes, it might help, but it is no reason why it would make sense that you'll get your diploma, since we all know that getting your diploma is mostly up to yourself and your effort and motivation.

The commercial continues to say that they give a warranty: when you don't pass, you can try it again. Where exactly is the warranty in this? It is no warranty that you will indeed get your diploma, since you can easily fail again the second time. So what then? Is it a warranty that you can definitely try again? And if it is, how does that make Scheidegger a better educational instute than others?

Well, let's see if maybe it all comes together in the end. The commercial ends by saying 'Scheidegger, where you always succeed.' I think this is meant to be a slogan which you can see in two ways. First they want to say that you can always find something you want there. Well, that's probably not true, but they do have a variety of studies there and besides, it is not really an exceptional thing for marketeers to say.
However, the more important meaning of the slogan is that you will always get your diploma. Which simply cannot be true. It just can't be that there has never been anyone starting a study at Scheidegger and not finished or not passed it. And no, I'm not going to proof that, but I don't suppose that anyone wants to argue with me about that fact. So, the commercial gives untrue information.

Given that this is a commercial for an educational institute, I would expect it to be smart. But this commercial definitely isn't. Actually, this would only convince me not to subscribe there. However, it is a good example to be used in marketing lectures to show the things that can be wrong with a commercial. A small credit for that contribution.

Stella's story

The story of Stella. A 24-year old girl, working with children with difficulties in their behaviour, ages varying from 4 till 12 years old. Finished her studies about 1,5 years ago. Loved her job.

Until something happened. One of the boys at work got in a fight with another child. To protect the other child, and because it is her job, she jumped in between and got hit on her shoulder. She needed surgery, but didn’t completely recover. Now she is not able to do her job anymore, since she can’t lift up the kids anymore, which is definitely necessary with her job. Besides, the day this happened, she was not only hit physically, but also emotionally. Sometimes she is scared, afraid a similar thing will happen again.

While she was very good at her job before the accident, she is not anymore, through no fault of her own. What’s changed?

Nowadays managers are always looking for the best. They only want to hire the best employees. Keywords are ‘professionalism’, ‘well-developed’, ‘success’ and ‘responsibility’. They want to reach their goal and expect their employees to give their best. In return they will reward their employees through wages, bonuses and a good working environment. They try to motivate their employees this way.

This all sounds good, but there are other factors influencing performance. Well-being, for example. Nice colleagues and a good working environment might help, but there’s more. Let’s get back to Stella. Nothing’s really changed in her work environment, but her well-being is not even close to what is was before. Shouldn’t managers take this into account as well? Instead of focussing on the performance and well-being of the organization as a whole, shouldn’t they also focus on individual performance and well-being?

This might be complicated. Especially in a large company, it might be difficult to discover personal problems, and ever more difficult to fix them. However, those drastic changes, like the case of Stella, are definitely noticeable. Besides, they definitely influence performance and thus the results of the company. So you’d say that the company should take the individual well-being of its employees into account. Still, you might question if this is taking the company’s tasks one step too far. The interests of the company and its individuals might be conflicting. Maybe, in Stella’s case, she should go looking for another job. It might be better  for both the company and Stella. However, she might never feel as good about her job as she did before the accident again. What do you think? To what extent is Stella’s case the company’s responsibility?

The world in 50 years...

This week I had to think about what the world would look like in 50 years. Of course the first thing that comes to mind is technology: in 50 years we will probably have computer that can do anything, robots that will do everything for us, maybe technology will even be implemented in the human body, in the way that we will have a built-in mobile phone.

You might have your doubts about how positive these predicted changes are. Productive, sure. Easy, definitely. But just a little too easy maybe; everything will be done for us, so people might get extremely lazy, and, as a consequence, fat. However, in 50 years we might already have found a way to solve that problem.

So much for the obvious scenario. But what if it does not turn out to go this way? What if, between now and 2061, something goes extremely wrong? What if new technologies make it too easy to start a war, to kill thousands of people at the same time? And what if that happens? What if half of the world does not survive, and the other half blames technology for it? This might sound a bit theoretical and you might think it will never happen, but it could happen. And what if the world then decides that technology is evil and cannot be used extensively anymore? At that point, the whole world goes back to, say, the 1950’s.

Extreme politeness. Collectivism. Face-to-face conversations. Dishwashing by hand. Could that be our future? Could it go the exact opposite direction from what everyone is expecting? And if it does, will it last or will the world start developing itself again the same way it did 50 years ago? And will we end up in the same state as we are now in another 100 years? Is such a future possible at all? What do you think?