Controlling the Silence

Social media is about getting the message out — words. Few of us pause to think about the silence or the spaces between words.

I just counted a typical tweet — it was 120 characters with about 20 spaces between the words. Since there are about 6,000 tweets per second that means an average of 120,000 spaces between words tweeted per second. That is the equivalent of about 3 novels on ‘nothing’. Novelists battle with short sentences: 8 words or less are easy to read, 29 words or more are hard to read. A typical sentence is 15 to 20 words. But what about the spaces between words — or the silence?

When we attend job interviews we pretend to listen intently — then rush out an answer we have often pre-prepared. We believe the interviewer expects us to fill the silence with words. Often people babble on endlessly — losing the plot. That often means they don’t get the job because they thought the silence had to be filled. I know — I’ve done it myself.

One interview technique I experimented with was silence. After the question is asked — Pause. Answer reasonably briefly then go silent. Wait. Wait. Wait. Often the interviewer looks down. Panics a bit. Fires off another quick question. You repeat the technique. You are in a sense controlling the interviewer with silence. He/she has to work harder than you. So you have to use it carefully as they may think you were hard work. So a balanced approach is needed for a job interview. But in other situations where you are being questioned you can gain control of a questioner with silence. You make them fill the silence.

An irony of human nature is we hate being crowded out — a lack of space — yet people huddle together in streets and tower blocks with more space between the buildings than themselves and another person. We huddle together on social media — hating not having a say — being silent.

When we buy a telescopic we look for stars, planets or moons. Yet around them is a lot more space. We never seek out the space between the planets which is a lot easier to find.

My final thought is from Star Trek — space is the final frontier.