Unassisted Communication – 1 – A Guidebook to Internet Use Self-Assessment

Trying to represent the communication channels and dynamics of relationships with any reasonable degree of accuracy and richness is quite challenging.  I tend to view each human walking around as an encapsulation of the world in human form – at least that part of the learned behaviors and knowledge that any given human has managed to absorb into their mind through learning and then retain and be able to use.  The complexity of humans can be mind boggling and is certainly amazing.  If you then set out to model their interactions, things become very interesting indeed.  The simple fact that many humans seem to understand enough about other humans to please them, enrich their lives, be a part of groups, control them, etc., etc., etc. is truly a wonder.

I hope we can all visualize a human in the physical world.  We are each a container of skin with skeleton, muscles and other tissue. fluids, …  We can each move or be moved around in the world, and can interact physically with the things around us.  When we can see/hear/smell/touch/taste each other and the things around us, we have an enormous range of “unassisted” options for communication.  We are well constructed for, among other things, this type of physical communication.  While highly complex, since we are “built for it,” it is sort of by definition the “simplest” form of communication.  (Yes, I did just present you with a significant contradiction because it is indeed rich)  While today we take our abstract spoken language for granted to a large degree, recall that this along with most of the devices we use to communicate are inventions that are not a part of the “original equipment.”

The Movie “Quest for Fire” is an interesting window into what that world might have been like.  Trying to protect and then find new burning embers, and then discovering that another group had invented a way to actually start a fire – all without words.  Another approach to get some idea of what it might have been like to communicate before there was language, the closest you are likely to come would be to imagine how you would communicate with a person who speaks a language that has very few common sound-meanings with your own language.  What you do know, however, is that this person very likely also has words and language.  This may actually make things harder for you, however, depending upon what you are trying to communicate.  If you are hungry or thirsty figuring out which words correspond with these physical realities might well be a waste of time depending upon how hungry or thirsty you are of course.  Simply simulating motions for drinking or eating would likely suffice and once you have eaten or quenched your thirst, you can sort out the words and perhaps those words would serve as the start of your very own Rosetta Stone.

Actually eating or drinking to show that you are hungry or thirsty – doing the thing you are trying to communicate – is (I would argue) the most direct form of communication – let’s call this “Direct Physical Communication (DPC).”  The jump from this to trying to act out eating or drinking without actually eating or drinking to communicate need may seem like a very small one, but it is the fundamental basis for all abstracted, or indirect communications.  I’ll refer to this simplest form of abstracted communication (for our purposes at least) “Indirect Physical Communication (IPC).”  While the  distinction here is a bit interesting, DPC is of limited use so we’ll likely refer mostly to IPC.

Our path could take several branches at this point, but now is very likely a good time to introduce the idea of communicating emotions.  Emotions are not a physical reality to anyone except the person who is experiencing the emotion – happiness, sadness, fear, anger, affection, etc. Many people are very adept at communicating their emotions, and many people are also very adept at reading the emotions of others.  This is where things START to get very interesting and challenging.  At the most basic level the individual who is feeling the emotion can generally communicate that emotion or not – with some exceptions where things are more difficult to mask.  Although the reasoning is somewhat different, we’ll call this “Direct Emotional Communication (DEC).”  One of our learned behaviors is the acceptable display of emotion, which can involve masking, replacement and other techniques including of course the display of the actual emotion.  Adding learned behaviors into this communication mix leads to “Indirect Emotional Communication (IEC).”  It is very difficult (perhaps impossible) to know when one of these terms applies and the other doesn’t.  For that reason, IEC will pretty much always be assumed and so IEC and EC (Emotional Communication) will be used interchangeably unless there is some reason to know and then DEC will be explicitly referenced.

As a reminder, we haven’t gotten to “language” or other devices to assist in communication as yet.  It can be difficult for us to think from a different frame of reference, but I think it is important to keep in mind that language is not required for DPC, IPC, DEC or IEC (did I lose you?!).  Before there was language, people didn’t know what they were missing and I’m sure many believed they were getting along as well as can be expected without it.  In fact, it would be a serious mistake to underestimate the impact of this communication level.  We continue to use it extensively today in our interpersonal contact and how well we are trained to use it can have a large impact upon how successful we are.

Introduction – A Guidebook to Internet Use Self-Assessment

In our efforts to devise useful products for our family business, our discussions tend to cover a wide range of topics.  It’s one of the things I enjoy most about my opportunity to establish a family business.  We often end up in debates about how much or how well people utilize the internet at varying levels.  As with most things in our country/world, I believe there is real diversity and real opportunity.  Being a technologist from way back, I tend to be an optimist with respect to what can be accomplished with technology.  I’ve also witnessed, heard about and can imagine situations where bad things have happened.  I’m planning (hoping) to write a series of essays that can serve as a guide to help folks self-assess their internet use, improve the overall quality of their online experience and help them move toward a healthier and richer experience with this amazing technology.

The topic is complex and controversial for good reason.  Unless you actually possess a sixth sense, the internet may well be the closest many of us will come to possessing such a capability.  Mel Gibson’s character in “What Women Want” leads us down an entertaining (if you like the movie of course) path making an argument that having extrasensory perception can be both curse and blessing.  That argument is also made regarding the Internet.  I’ll go further – it is, can and will be used for good and ill.  How can you protect yourself from all of the ill and take advantage of all of the good?  I don’t believe you can (even if you bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist), but I am hopeful that you can bias your experiences away from the ill and toward the good.

In my role at Texas Instruments, I was afforded a birds-eye view of and involvement in the development of many exciting technologies.  Interestingly, TI had worldwide factories when I first hired in and started writing my first test programs as a product engineering technician.  We were able to communicate with these factories in real time through a messaging system and factory monitoring/control software – portions of which are still in use in somewhat evolved form today.  TI continued to put a heavy emphasis on communication technologies internally and as a part of their integrated circuit product portfolio.

I hope to put the perspectives developed as a human being, husband, parent, engineer, businessman, and TI’er to work for you as a moderating influence.  I’m going to do my best to avoid technological (or other types of) jargon and create a timeless, fun and readable guide to help you think through the best path for you to integrate this technology into your life.  I intend to stay away from recommendations when it comes to internet use – but I will be recommending methods you can use to think the issue through for yourself.  I will say, though, that I don’t recommend abandoned adoption just like I don’t recommend the ostrich approach.  My emphasis will generally be on your physical, emotional and sometimes financial well-being.  The closest I am likely to come to the topic of religion will be to discuss how values and ethics fit into the equation – how you value your soul will, again, be up to you.

I will warn you that I like to begin at the beginning and think those things through that I consider relevant to the topic.  I will attempt to touch on the tips, and let you explore the icebergs if that is what makes you happy.

Perhaps I should get on with it now…

Probably so, but I’m a bit afraid that the first few sections are a bit of a “slog”, so I’d like to introduce a device to you that will perhaps whet your whistle and give you an idea of the types of things we’ll be exploring and why I might delve into communication in a fair amount of detail in the first few installments.

Please picture yourself as a baby if you will – perhaps still in your mother’s womb would be a good place to start.  I hope you are imagining a perhaps tight but generally forgiving playground where you can sort of float around and explore whatever you encounter – kick it, punch it, suck it, etc. to your little heart’s content and hopefully delight – basically boundaries but no rules.  Your senses are developing but are of limited use.  You are starting to learn some things about touch, hearing and perhaps smell (can babies smell in the womb – seems likely) and taste.  Here you are minding your own business and then something starts squeezing the living daylights out of you!  It hurts like heck, you slide and it hurts some more, it squeezes your head so hard it deforms, you feel a rush of air, strange new things rubbing against you, something holds you by the legs and smacks your bottom and you realize it hurts and you can breathe and cry!  Something cleans a bunch of guck off of you and it feels cold and you are poked and prodded and then you are wrapped very tightly in something so you can’t move like you could before and then something holds you gently and tries to get you to suck on something and you do and it’s wonderful again if you can ignore the fact that you can’t move like you’re used to.

This is where you REALLY start to learn about relationships.  It’s slow going at first, and throughout your childhood it can go from leisurely to the proverbial drinking from the fire hose learning mode and everything in between.  Right now, though, you are completely transparent – you are used to being naked and probably prefer it but too bad.  You are used to swimming and probably prefer it but too bad (for now anyway).  You know that when something hurts you want to cry and do.  You know that when you hear something you like, you want to smile and do.  You know that when you are hungry and it seems like no one cares you want to cry and do.  You are an open book with no words – just needs and a few wonderful things to offer in return.  Shapes pass in and out of your vision and hearing and smell and taste and touch that seem to want to do things for you that you need and some of the things you want.  What you’re going to be learning, among other things, in the next 60-100 years (hopefully that much and longer) is about relationship skills.  And when you die, by definition you will have learned everything you will ever know about it, but I don’t think you’ll ever stop learning until you are no longer open to it – an unfortunate fact for some people.

I’m going to briefly introduce a device that I’m going to use to help with the relationship discussion – the central theme.  Please visualize a bubble.  You’ll likely be in the bubble, but you don’t have to be.  For starters, your relationship bubble is how you control what others perceive about you.  We’re going to talk a great deal about this device, but in the process of doing so, we would likely end up digressing so much about communication that I’m thinking it will be better to make it one big digression and be done with it.

Anyone up for a digression?  I promise to make it as short and painless as I can…