Information Overload

As a married man with a houseful of pets, a homeowner, a fulltime employee, and a student I find myself in a constant battle with information overload. I take care of school and personal business during my lunch hour at work. I see to my pets while I’m doing my schoolwork. I’m on the phone with my family as I’m playing with the pets. All the while, friends and coworkers are in out, the TV is on, the radio is playing, and my mind can’t settle on any of it.

In our wired world where our Email is constantly there in our Blackberry, and we can surf the web with our smart phone no matter where we are, do we sacrifice focus for convenience? Our text points out that the average American sees 600 to 625 advertising messages each day (272). At this point we are being distracted from our distractions. So, while I am having a pleasant evening with friends and family, the TV will be on, I will Google the actors on my smart phone, and both distractions will advertise targeted products to me the entire time. There will be ads for my smart phone on TV and ads for TV on my smart phone, and most likely someone on the show I’m watching will be doing the same thing. But I really can’t be sure because I’ll be half paying attention to the funny story someone’s telling in the kitchen.

Technology has made information nearly ubiquitous and I wouldn’t know what to do without it. I’m glad I have Email and can Google my curiosities. Sometimes though, all the resources want my attention at once and my eyes will bounce from screen to screen to book to window, and that’s when I know its time to shut something down.

Touch Communication

As Floyd points out in our text, a human’s sense of touch is the only one of the five senses that they cannot live without (224). Indeed, I can hardly imagine a life in which I was unable to feel. Affectionate touching is to me the most obvious type of touch communication, and also the most important. There doesn’t seem to be any better way of letting someone know that you care about them than by placing an understanding hand on his or her shoulder. The physical connection can be stronger than even the most heartfelt verbal reminder that you are there for them. The same is true when you tell someone you love them. The meaning is there but your feelings may be better represented through a hug or a kiss. Perhaps this is due to the old cliché, actions speak louder than words. Or maybe touch bypasses all the symbolic deciphering that our minds must cycle through when interpreting words or visual cues. In any case, touch speaks to something more primal and therefore more believable.

Words are generally thought of as a nonphysical act where as touch is completely physical in its nature. It seems then, that touch is a more straightforward and proactive way to express our feelings. A wife might say to her husband, “you tell me you love me but how do you show me?” An effective way of showing her may be through a warm embrace. This is a primary reason why touch communication is so effective, we see the act of touching as a concrete message as oppose to words, which we know are easily manipulated. As another cliché says, talk is cheap.

Touching in communication seems to blur the lines between sender and receiver. The physical connection between the two communicating bodies seems to invite the idea that the two are one being and is perhaps even intrapersonal in some respects. The intimacy and trust brought on by touch in both sender and receiver fosters open, meaningful communication.