Interpersonal Skills for the Digital World
Interpersonal Skills for the Digital World
Elizabeth Johnson
ATE 550
Interpersonal Skills in the Workplace
Marshall University
Instructor: Dr. Feon Smith
Date: February 22, 2014
Interpersonal Skills for the Digital World
Introduction
It seems everyone you meet these days, from students in elementary school to their great-grandparents, has a cell phone. In addition, most people have other electronic devices as well, including tablets, laptop computers, and MP3 players. These devises have inarguably made worldwide communication much easier. However, as is often the case, convenience has come with a price.
I did not grow up in the digital age. When I was a child, the biggest revolution in interpersonal communication was the touch tone phone, and that was greeted with skepticism by my parents (“What’s so hard about dialing a phone that you need push buttons?”). In the 1970s, however, electronic communication took off. Fax machines were a wondrous invention, as was the clunky “car phone.” I remember my soon-to-be husband telling me in the late 1970s, that some day I would not only have a computer in my home, but that I would use it to send text, sound, pictures, and video all over the world, virtually instantly. Frankly, I thought he was a nut. If he had also told me that the computer would be small enough to fit in my pocket or purse, and I would also be able to make phone calls from it, I probably wouldn’t have married him.
Yet here we are, and it is indeed a wondrous age. The only problem is that some people don’t seem to know when to unplug. There is nothing more disconcerting to me than when I am talking to someone and they pull out their phone and start checking their messages. I’ve seen couples out on dates paying more attention to their phones than to each other. And there isn’t a teacher or trainer I know who hasn’t had to cope with students taking phone calls during class.
In Adult
Elizabeth Johnson
ATE 550
Interpersonal Skills in the Workplace
Marshall University
Instructor: Dr. Feon Smith
Date: February 22, 2014
Interpersonal Skills for the Digital World
Introduction
It seems everyone you meet these days, from students in elementary school to their great-grandparents, has a cell phone. In addition, most people have other electronic devices as well, including tablets, laptop computers, and MP3 players. These devises have inarguably made worldwide communication much easier. However, as is often the case, convenience has come with a price.
I did not grow up in the digital age. When I was a child, the biggest revolution in interpersonal communication was the touch tone phone, and that was greeted with skepticism by my parents (“What’s so hard about dialing a phone that you need push buttons?”). In the 1970s, however, electronic communication took off. Fax machines were a wondrous invention, as was the clunky “car phone.” I remember my soon-to-be husband telling me in the late 1970s, that some day I would not only have a computer in my home, but that I would use it to send text, sound, pictures, and video all over the world, virtually instantly. Frankly, I thought he was a nut. If he had also told me that the computer would be small enough to fit in my pocket or purse, and I would also be able to make phone calls from it, I probably wouldn’t have married him.
Yet here we are, and it is indeed a wondrous age. The only problem is that some people don’t seem to know when to unplug. There is nothing more disconcerting to me than when I am talking to someone and they pull out their phone and start checking their messages. I’ve seen couples out on dates paying more attention to their phones than to each other. And there isn’t a teacher or trainer I know who hasn’t had to cope with students taking phone calls during class.
In Adult