BITES // 09.05.19 // NEW DIMENSIONS OF COMMUNICATION
Every month we collect six of the best pieces of content published on the web and share them with you, because we believe that the most extraordinary thinking is inspired by looking to unexpected places. BITES is a reading list for those who want to bring a little of the outside, in. For more of what we’re devouring, subscribe to BITES here.
1. EMOJIS WORK 👩💻👨💻
Has a colleague ever interpreted your tone in an email communication in the exact opposite way that you intended? 😬 A well-placed emoji may have saved you. 😏 In fact, studies are finding that emojis can help teams form relationships and better understand one another. 😊 Slack has been a major driver in the rise of emojis in the workplace, where teams are using emojis to not only create more efficient ways to communicate digitally, but to provide an extra layer of context when words on a screen don’t convey the full picture. 🤩 Is this a sign that formality and rigidity in business communications are on their way out, or is this just an isolated trend within the Slack universe? 🤔
2. SWIPE RIGHT TO HIRE
What happens when a generation growing up reading in images and swiping for romance starts applying for jobs? For one, the apparent extinction of black and white, text-heavy resumes. Some might argue “photos, bitmojis and other gimmicks often detract from someone’s candidacy versus adding to it,” yet employers are experiencing an uptick in resumes that look less like professional documents and more like dating profiles. Are we creating more room for bias in the hiring process (see South Korean “lookism”)? Or are we accepting that personality might be more important than skills and accomplishments?
3. THE SCIENCE OF STORIES
Stories aren’t just something we enjoy to pass the time; stories let us make sense of the world around us as they help fill in the gaps between the facts. It turns out that our brains derive pleasure from drawing conclusions, with pattern recognition triggering “the same reward system in the brain integral to drug, alcohol, and gambling addictions.” While this brain mechanism makes us better at making assessments of our environment, our addiction to this feeling often enables us to overlook the whole truth, leaving us “compelled to take incomplete stories and run with them” in exchange for a quick hit of dopamine (see confirmation bias). In an age when we’re swimming in data, how (in)accurate are the stories we are telling ourselves?
4. BEYOND THE MUSIC
Music artists have been fighting for their share of earnings for years, especially in the digital era where music is practically free. These days, most of an artist’s money comes from live shows. And now, as icons like Beyonce and J Cole have shown with their own documentaries, the stories behind the music can be compelling works of art in themselves, while providing the artist with an extra source of revenue. With Travis Scott’s new film already trending on Netflix, this may solidify documentaries as a necessary medium for artists to establish icon status and monetize additional layers of storytelling around the music.
5. ~*~ INTERNET SPEAK ~*~
Is language set in stone, something to be held high on a pedestal and collect dust on the shelf? Or is it something that is meant to be organic, dynamic, and rule breaking in its evolution? In her new book, Gretchen McCulloch argues that the way we communicate online isn’t lazy and dumbed down (as many “by-the-book” lexicographers may say), but rather creative and expressive. When we use a tilde to convey ~sarcasm~ or when we add multiple “s” to the end of yesssss, we are actually adding more texture and context to the ways we communicate. It begs the question- if used in the right way, in the right place, and reaches the right audience, then who is to say what is and isn’t proper
6. A LANGUAGE HACK FOR GREATER WISDOM
The writer of this newsletter is excited to share with you a simple hack for enhanced decision-making and emotional regulation. The writer of this newsletter recently discovered that speaking to yourself in the third person has the power to make you wiser. As obnoxious as it may sound to others to speak in third person, this “ancient rhetorical method favoured by the likes of Julius Caesar” forces one to see things more objectively, and ultimately make wiser choices.
TAKEAWAY:
Communication transcends words. We “speak” in pictures and stories, so communication is evolving to become something we see, rather than just hear. These simple changes in the ways we express ourselves have the power to dramatically shape how we view the world. In a world where the sheer number of communication platforms continues to proliferate, we’re finding new ways to add context and texture to the formats in which we engage. You might argue that the boom of social media and the internet have watered-down the way we communicate; but maybe the dimensions of language have just expanded to include a wider, more nuanced range of creative expression.
