Your Study of Communication

My motivation for studying communication started when I was a young child. As a youth growing up in an urban neighborhood I noticed many people dying due to misunderstandings of with conversations. I always heard lots of fussing and fighting in my household and the sad thing is it was usually over nothing. I also realized that majority of the fights in my neighborhood were due to misunderstandings and non verbal communication skills. My motivation for studying communication is also to increase my speech, confidence, and self esteem. These are a couple key factors that an effective communicator has in order to be considered effective in my eyes. My motivation is derived from all the times when I was a youth and I tried to explain something and could not get my point across. There were many times that I would have great ideas but I could not generate a clear picture to the receiver because of the ignorance of certain communication styles and practices.

The benefit of understanding communication in my personal life is vital when you are married with kids. Life as a single man was very different and life as a married man is different due to the way you communicate. It is very beneficial that I understand how to approach a situation more than one way. If I notice that my message is not getting across and I know the other person is not going to understand it what I intend by saying the same thing over and over, I will relay my message in a different way. In a marriage, you have to consider the other person. I have learned that not everybody process information like I do. I feel that active listening and non verbal communication helps my understanding of how to use both for a positive.

Out of the definitions from the book in Table 2.1, the first definition communication is a process of acting on information comes closest to my own personal definition of communication. I view communication as a heart beat because, once it stops there is nothing else to bring it back to life. This is true in communication because, once you say something you regret, you can’t take it back. Once we stop communicating then this is when we all will cease to exist.

References

Trenholm, S. (2011) Thinking Through Communication. (Sixth Edition). Pearson Education Inc.