Overview
Response 1: reply in 5-7 sentences
My favorite two chapters from the recent lectures are chapters one and two. Based on my understanding from chapter one, self-monitoring could make me a more competent communicator. The examples in the chapter showed the advantages and the differences that monitoring the words said in a conversation could have while communicating. Although there are other characteristics of communication competence, self-monitoring allows people to observe the other person and know whether they should keep moving forward with the conversation or rephrase anything that could have been misinterpreted.
Sometimes observing could help guide the conversation and avoid difficult situations that could expand unintentionally. For example, whenever I talk to my friends about a disagreement I try to measure my tone and look at their facial expressions. Their facial expression usually guides the conversation and lets me know when I should rephrase my statement. In this way, I can self-monitor in order to avoid making the disagreement worse.
In addition to chapter one, I also learned a lot from chapter two. Chapter two was mostly about the differences between face-to-face communication and social media. Based on this chapter interpersonal communication and social media have advantages and disadvantages. An advantage of using social media as a method of communication is that everything said or posted is premeditated.
For example, my friend had met a guy through social media, and they texted for a while. After some time, they decided to meet up and she noticed that the way he responded to her was not as polite as before. As the day continued, she noticed that the person she had in front of her differed from the one she texted. It was the same guy but with a different mindset. He was rude and seemed like he was talking before thinking.
In this example, my friend saw the difference between the way the guy would text her versus how he would talk to her in person. He showed that his personality overall was different than what it appeared. Therefore, not everything is what it seems like on social media, so it is better to interact in person instead of using certain online platforms. In this case, social media has an equal disadvantage and advantages. So, using face-to-face communication helps in knowing who the person is, and social media can also help people think before they send something hurtful.
Response 2: 5-7 sentences
In Chapter 1, I learned about the importance of communication and how my approach can vary from one person to another. Effective communication is not a natural ability and I often observe people from my generation struggling with this skill. It is crucial to view communication as a transactional process where both parties send and receive messages in an appropriate manner. Interpersonal relationships can be difficult to maintain without sending the correct message from both ends. I learned how mediated and face-to-face communication can be effective in different situations. The way you approach a person and your communication competence impacts your delivery and how they feel about your words.
At my job, I work with people with a similar age demographic. However, they do not always have the same sense of humor. Some people prefer you to ask them to do a task directly. Other people carry a sense of entitlement and will not do a task even if you directly ask them. I was working with a lady who had a sense of humor and liked to chat a lot. I noticed that I was doing a lot of the tasks all at the same time and got a little overwhelmed. She was doing the easiest position, allowing her time to grab the drive-thru window. I made a joke about me doing all of the work and she got offended and said, "You could have just asked me to do it." I realized that communication competence is important and I should have analyzed the situation better. If I asked her directly, there would have been no hard feelings about doing the task.
In Chapter 2, I learned about the impacts of mediated communication in depth. This chapter intrigued me as a Generation Z person who grew up surrounded by technology. When I look around at my peers, everyone is buried in their phones. Mediated communication is a staple in my generation through different messaging and social media applications. It differs from face-to-face communication because you can have social support from someone you have never met in real life. Many people from my generation also have "internet friends." There could be potential downsides to this because it opens the door for more superficial relationships and relational deterioration.
On social media, I notice that people like to post indirect messages about a situation instead of directly reaching out to the other party to discuss the situation. Behavior similar to this opens the door for other people to be involved in the situation. The message could end up rubbing off on people who are not originally involved in the incident. I believe keeping social media out of personal matters that could be handled one-on-one is a way to effectively communicate with people.