taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (02/20/87)
I would like to respond to Sue Koch's recent posting on the Office of
Technology Assessment study on Communication Systems.
From what was posted I'm confused about the scope of the study, so some
of the comments below may not apply. Specifically, is the study
limited to applications of technology to communication?
I have three points. The first relates to human communication in
general, and the second two apply to items I didn't see in Sue's
outline. Finally, I hope that OTA will solicit input from
non-technologically-oriented people, since these systems affect them
greatly without much choice on their parts and there are issues
of class and discrimination that they're on the receiving end of.
First, I saw no mention of basic research on how humans communicate
in the first place, with no reference to computers and technology. By
this I don't mean the *forms*, as Sue listed, but rather the content.
An example: I've become aware that throughout much of history, human
interactions have been largely value-neutral or negative. A neutral
interaction might be a transaction in a store. But people don't tend
to communicate positively - appreciation, constructive criticism,
active listening, etc. Rather, we tend to get feedback when we've
screwed up, no feedback when we're doing OK, and that feedback is often
a judgement of our worth as people, not a statement that the listener
didn't like our behavior. Examples of what I consider negative
communication are straight criticism, arguments instead of discussions
(and on the net, flaming), office gossip, many parent-child interactions,
and so forth.
I think the fact that so much interaction is value-laden affects how we
are as people and affects our self-esteem and from there, our behavior,
dramatically. From it derives aphorisms and behavior that have a
profound effect on our national and personal identities - the example
that comes to mind is, "It's only illegal if you get caught". Some
people, groups, and philosophies are trying to change this and train
people to communicate positively, but they aren't technologically
oriented and are likely to be missed in any study that focuses on
technology. And I think that this positive/negative split has
important implications for our future as a nation.
I also hope that the study won't ignore human history - we have much to
learn from the past that is so often overlooked.
My second point is that the outline as Sue presented it contains no
recognition of unwritten communication at all, other than the
telephone. Body language is said to comprise up to 90% of the content
of an interaction and it is completely lost in any remote interaction
(email, telephone...).
Thirdly, how does the volume of communication affect the quality of
life? I think it lessens it. As we have to cope with more
information, more communication transactions, we have to pigeonhole
faster. When our pigeonholing is of people, those people's lives can
be affected in a major way. The classic example is in special
education - a person who is categorized as a slow learner tends to
*become* a slow learner.
I hope that the sponsorship of the study by the OTA does not mean that
the human aspects of communication will be ignored in favor of the
technological aspects. Communication systems are *mostly*
non-technological - the technology is really just the medium and
there's so much more to such systems! Also, most communication will
continue to occur without respect to technology, even in an information
age.
I also hope that some comparative cross-cultural work will be done -
how we communicate in this country may or may not bear any similarity
to how it's done in other cultures. For that matter, how people with
access to technology communicate may bear little relation to how it's
done in other classes in our own society.
Barbara Zanzig
{major backbone sites}!tektronix!tekecs!packrat!barbaraz
barbaraz@packrat.gwd.tek.comtaylor@hplabsc.UUCP (02/20/87)
I would like to make a few comments which touch on Sue's interests, but do not address any of the "real" issues which she is more probably interested in. First of all, I (and many people just like me) do not consider that communication is a very good description of what goes on with most communication activities on this planet. Take for example the popularity of "flaming" on the net, oftentimes personal attacks, and usually communications of ideas in contrast, but rarely with the impetus towards teaching and helping to reach common consensus of idea through assuaging of thought. You find extremely sparse instance in any realm of communication wherein the singular idea is met to develop and attain a polarity which is fully comprehensible. Quite the opposite: people share their own ideas, their own views, (or more often, borrowed ones), for various reasons but seldom with a view to accomplishing a singular solution to problems and difficulties. While I except the news in this regard, this very popular unilateral symptom of most discussion seems to be epidemic, but really has nothing to do with the means of communication, excepting in one instance, and this is my point, that the ground rules for communication in the "Information Age" are not set in sympathy with the doctrines of equality which the people should have observed, and to which all leaders should subscribe. By this I mean that the first basis of all communication should adhere to the same goals of education, which by some doctrinare means observes a willingness not only to teach, but to serve. While it appears obvious that the full means, culturally and psychologically, available to achieve this goal, are ensconced in the mind/body of the "system" (as it were), there is a common and acceptable level of mendacity characterizing all of our endeavors, which, I suspect, harbors entirely different values and perhaps (I will not deny the possibility) an entirely different psychology as well. It would seem therefore that a discussion of the means of communication and its reflection OF the participants should focus constantly on the rules of communication as they are understood by the participants, i.e. what is to be accomplished? Tony Marriott