Speaker 1: Really now really.
Speaker 2: Really, no, really hello, and welcome to really know Really
Speaker 2: With Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden. This episode is about
Speaker 2: how often we miscommunicate, our tendency to interpret text messages
Speaker 2: as negative, the issues of video conferencing, the phenomena of
Speaker 2: phone phobia, and the value of using emojis, like if
Speaker 2: we texted you and said please subscribe heart and prayer
Speaker 2: hands emoji, maybe you'd do it. So please subscribe heart
Speaker 2: and prayer hands. And now here's Jason and Peter, Hello everybody.
Speaker 3: And even that could be misinterpreted. I say hello everybody,
Speaker 3: and it could be misinterpreted. That's that's oh yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean why did he say hello and not I? And
Speaker 3: why is it everybody doesn't include me? Are really today?
Speaker 3: Is that recipients of say, a two word email or
Speaker 3: a text such as nice job or great work is
Speaker 3: misinterpreted as being sarcastic or snyn and.
Speaker 4: Give the answer. Yet let him think, what do you think?
Speaker 4: The number is at home six sixty percent of the time,
Speaker 4: And it started with me and producer Lauria. And she's
Speaker 4: not going to get mad if I say this, But
Speaker 4: Laurie has an angry, resting place, and I've known Lauria
Speaker 4: and a lover for twenty five years who worked together.
Speaker 4: But I was getting text while you were away doing Broadway,
Speaker 4: and it was like, we're doing this, and I was
Speaker 4: realizing I'm taking them negatively, right, So then we started
Speaker 4: joking them negative. But we started then writing each other
Speaker 4: like see you tomorrow, said with a bit of grace
Speaker 4: and acknowledging your that. But then I said, wait a minute,
Speaker 4: we need to do an episode in this, because if
Speaker 4: they're misconstrued, this off six sixty percent of time. And
Speaker 4: most people think when they send a text that ninety
Speaker 4: percent of the people receiving it receive it the way
Speaker 4: they're sending it, and it's nowhere close to that. So
Speaker 4: I saw that doctor Nick Morgan, who's an expert in
Speaker 4: communication public speaking, had talked about that specifically, so I
Speaker 4: wanted to get him on to address that because I figured,
Speaker 4: if if we're making errors like that, I mean, I
Speaker 4: get a text going how is dinner? And I go, oh,
Speaker 4: you're saying I didn't invite you. I people go negative.
Speaker 4: By the way, because because we were initially caveman, it
Speaker 4: was a survival thing that our default is negative. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna get eaten. I'm gonna my parents kept on going.
Speaker 3: That made what that analogy made no sense. I don't
Speaker 3: want to.
Speaker 4: No, we have a negative default, and he'll talk about it.
Speaker 3: I think negative default because we were cavemen.
Speaker 4: Because of response of fighting.
Speaker 3: If you said to a caveman, nice job, he went, oh, we.
Speaker 4: Go, yeah job. And by the way, today one in
Speaker 4: five office workers say they have been reprimanded, demoted, or
Speaker 4: even fired over misinterpreted messages. And texting is the way
Speaker 4: we're going. It's it's becoming more prevalent than email because
Speaker 4: it's convenient. So let's say how to do yes.
Speaker 3: But this man is an expert in in body language
Speaker 3: and RHETORICI you you coach public speaking, you are a
Speaker 3: renowned teacher and author. You're I think we are very
Speaker 3: is fortunate to have you here. If he's hearing anything
Speaker 3: other than what I intend right now, I'm in big trouble.
Speaker 3: I'm being very flattering, are and I am being very
Speaker 3: Did I do it right? Doctor Moore?
Speaker 5: Beautifully warm and at home and well loved?
Speaker 3: Well? Thank you? That is Jason.
Speaker 4: So was I right about the fact that texting is
Speaker 4: now picking over? Where is this all going.
Speaker 5: Well, it's all going to be misunderstood at at a
Speaker 5: really startling and alarming rate. And that's the real issue.
Speaker 5: I urge people to use smiley faces and emoticons of
Speaker 5: various kinds, even if you think they're childish, because that
Speaker 5: at least produces the negative bias that we're talking about earlier,
Speaker 5: which is profound.
Speaker 3: And just to.
Speaker 5: Explain doctor Alexander what it's about. You imagine yourself as
Speaker 5: a as a cave person leaving the cave and walking
Speaker 5: through the savannah or the jungle or whatever, and you
Speaker 5: see a shadow out of the corner of your eye
Speaker 5: if you're uh kind of California dude, and you go, hey, cool,
Speaker 5: that's just a nice shadow. The next thing that happens
Speaker 5: is you get eaten by a sabertoothed tiger. If you're
Speaker 5: the anxious type, you take evasive action. We're descended from
Speaker 5: those anxious people that kept us, kept them and us alive.
Speaker 3: Research, by the way, tells me that the sabertooth tiger
Speaker 3: and the Homo sapien did not co exist at the
Speaker 3: same time, according to the tar pets where I'm told.
Speaker 3: But that's fine. I understand what he's saying, and you
Speaker 3: know what ext predators.
Speaker 5: Hey, the subtext I am not an expert in, but
Speaker 5: what you're hearing here from my partners.
Speaker 4: The subtext here is because I proposed that and was correct,
Speaker 4: and you reinforced it. He's a little bit irritic just
Speaker 4: to tad that is correct.
Speaker 3: You communicated that perfectly. That is correct.
Speaker 4: I've seen that in all these surveys in businesses they
Speaker 4: feel their emoticon and stuff. Emojis are less than professional,
Speaker 4: especially over a certain age, under a certain age, much
Speaker 4: more acceptable over a certain age.
Speaker 3: And and to tack onto that, there are so many
Speaker 3: of them now that you know. I sometimes I'll send
Speaker 3: a text and I'll try and be creative. So there's
Speaker 3: one that's like a goofy face, you know, and I'll
Speaker 3: put that on and and then I go, well, I
Speaker 3: wonder if that can be misinterpreted that I'm what you know,
Speaker 3: that doesn't say probably specifically enough, so yeah, it's you
Speaker 3: probably get misunderstood, or it probably means something already.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks to the teenagers some of whom may be watching,
Speaker 5: they've already appropriated and used it for something else. I
Speaker 5: like to use the laughter face with the two tears
Speaker 5: coming down out of the eyes, and my son, my
Speaker 5: teenage son, tells me that that's I can't do that anymore.
Speaker 5: That doesn't mean I won't tell me what it means,
Speaker 5: but he says, it doesn't mean what I think.
Speaker 4: He won't tell you what it means.
Speaker 5: No, you won't, he said. As I'm it's I'm hopeless.
Speaker 5: I'm too old, too very.
Speaker 4: Much sweet relationship good with son. Doesn't it feel like
Speaker 4: i't home even the expert son's going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But that's just to sort of drill into that
Speaker 3: a little bit, because I have the same situation with
Speaker 3: my grown sons. I have a thirty one and twenty
Speaker 3: seven year old son, and Peter has grown children too.
Speaker 3: It's hard, just hard. It feels like they call this
Speaker 3: in some ways the age of communication. I find that
Speaker 3: communication in general is getting harder and harder and harder,
Speaker 3: even having I have a group of friends. Peter is
Speaker 3: one of them with whom I have substantive conversations and
Speaker 3: we know each other's hearts well enough that we can
Speaker 3: be irreverent, and everybody understands it's trying to amuse each other.
Speaker 3: It's trying to be in fun. There's never any harm
Speaker 3: intended from it. But I find that the circle of
Speaker 3: people with which I can have real communication gets smaller
Speaker 3: and smaller and smaller because there's so much open to
Speaker 3: interpretation that is unintended.
Speaker 5: Yeah, people take offense, and the reason is that what
Speaker 5: we care about is each other's intent, and intent comes
Speaker 5: through strongly.
Speaker 3: Face to face.
Speaker 5: We have the five senses, and we get facial expressions
Speaker 5: and a smile and a nod, and when we move
Speaker 5: closer to people, we warm up the relationship. You can't
Speaker 5: do any of that on a text, and so the
Speaker 5: potential for it being negatively interpreted is vast. And on
Speaker 5: top of that, you reference that we're sending more and
Speaker 5: more texts. We're getting drowned in more and more information.
Speaker 5: We have to move faster and faster, so we're sending
Speaker 5: them more quickly, hence the typos, and we're reading them
Speaker 5: more quickly, thereby opening ourselves to misinterpretation, so that it's
Speaker 5: a never ending doom loop basically of communications. In spite
Speaker 5: of the fact that we're surrounded by all these tools,
Speaker 5: in all these wonderful ways to communicate.
Speaker 4: We're also multitest driving in today, I just was looking
Speaker 4: around more than usual to see how many people were
Speaker 4: texting while they're driving. So I don't even have your
Speaker 4: full attention while you're texting me back.
Speaker 3: You don't even or sadly you have their fish and
Speaker 3: the driver next to the crash.
Speaker 4: The part of this that I think comes through that
Speaker 4: Laurie and I were joking about the Goddess into the episode,
Speaker 4: was it also diminishes the person who's receiving it. You
Speaker 4: write something heartfelt and somebody sends you back liked, they
Speaker 4: hit one button to say you couldn't even get your
Speaker 4: thumbs going to say hey, I really appreciate you. I mean,
Speaker 4: that is diminishing. And I think that all that does.
Speaker 4: This all chip away at communication. And again I don't
Speaker 4: want to be the guys that's the next generation without
Speaker 4: face to face contact is missing out on something that's
Speaker 4: really important to getting things right.
Speaker 3: So if the.
Speaker 4: Errors are that prevalent, how is that impacting society? What
Speaker 4: are we getting wrong societally that's chipping away at our communication?
Speaker 5: Well, I think the evidence is all around us. I mean,
Speaker 5: especially during the pandemic, incidents of mental health issues went
Speaker 5: up and up and up, and drug abuse and alcohol
Speaker 5: abuse and so on them we became more depressed, more alienated,
Speaker 5: and more isolated lonelier as a society, and the face
Speaker 5: to face interaction is one way to help that get
Speaker 5: a little bit better.
Speaker 4: Doctor Morton.
Speaker 3: Is, there seems to be even in face to face communication,
Speaker 3: there seems to be so many more, for lack of
Speaker 3: a better word, landmines, unintended mishaps or insults, or this
Speaker 3: whole canceling phenomena. Sometimes somebody espouses something which is really
Speaker 3: reprehensible and they pay a social price for it. But
Speaker 3: sometimes it's truly unintended, or they're discussing something that has
Speaker 3: you know, it's more than just a cut and dry thing.
Speaker 3: It's a discussion to be had, and we are so
Speaker 3: quick to judge people and punish people in the act
Speaker 3: of trying to communicate, even face to face. I mean,
Speaker 3: you spend a lot of time teaching people to communicate
Speaker 3: more effectively, But I don't even know what question I'm asking.
Speaker 3: It just seems like it's becoming harder and harder and
Speaker 3: harder to express yourself fully and genuinely without being misinterpreted
Speaker 3: or without somehow offending someone unintentionally. How do do you
Speaker 3: agree in it?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: How do you, how do you deal with that?
Speaker 5: Well, I think that's well, first of all, it's an
Speaker 5: interesting question, and second, I think it's a it's sort
Speaker 5: of a combination of trends that are ultimately healthy for
Speaker 5: society and trends which are not healthy. And a lot
Speaker 5: of the issues that we're talking about have no question,
Speaker 5: been made worse by the by the digital world we're
Speaker 5: living in. No question, we're also becoming more open. I mean,
Speaker 5: when I started in the public speaking business, somebody was
Speaker 5: going to get up and speak. They would never share
Speaker 5: any of their individual history, their personal history. They would
Speaker 5: talk about some business issue or some academic issue. Nowadays
Speaker 5: it's odd if you don't share something of your personal journey.
Speaker 5: We want to know what do you have at stake here,
Speaker 5: what's in it for you? And so I think on
Speaker 5: the whole, that's a healthy trend. But it also means
Speaker 5: there's a lot more personal, prickly, potentially embarrassing, vulnerable stories
Speaker 5: out there, and we do get across if you step
Speaker 5: on those stories or make us feel bad about them.
Speaker 5: So I think all of our sensibilities and sense of
Speaker 5: vulnerability have increased.
Speaker 4: So how have we changed it for COVID? How much.
Speaker 4: Had society change, I know that zoom, we probably wouldn't
Speaker 4: be able to do this. And I'm not sure of
Speaker 4: the year when this happened, but it used to be
Speaker 4: guessing we're in person stuff. Now it's acceptable.
Speaker 3: Zoom is the zoom became a thing during the pandemic?
Speaker 3: I mean, I know, I think it existed before the pandemic,
Speaker 3: But has it changed in any profound way the way
Speaker 3: we communicate, the way we do this has videocy Yeah.
Speaker 5: Oh absolutely what I was working on a book on
Speaker 5: virtual communications in twenty seventeen, I would ask people in
Speaker 5: the Fortune thousand company how much videocarpacying do you do?
Speaker 5: How widespread is it in organization? It turned out on
Speaker 5: average it was five percent organization use video currency. In
Speaker 5: twenty twenty, I happened to call back one of the
Speaker 5: CEOs I had interviewed in twenty seventeen. I said, how
Speaker 5: you doing and he said, yeah, it took us three days,
Speaker 5: the entire companies using it. It was a huge sea
Speaker 5: change because we had to keep working somehow. And now
Speaker 5: now we're hybrid and we can do it either way.
Speaker 5: And it's actually we don't think of it this way
Speaker 5: because we had to live through a pandemic to get here,
Speaker 5: But it's actually broadened our communications palate andiful way we
Speaker 5: can connect. The three of us can connect, whereas before
Speaker 5: it would have involved travel on at least one of
Speaker 5: our parts, right, jet lag and uncomfortable nights and hotels
Speaker 5: and bad food and whatever else.
Speaker 3: Wow. But anecdotally it's also created a situation. Again, one
Speaker 3: of my big things is I always prefer real human
Speaker 3: contact rather than technology. But I anecdotally know more people
Speaker 3: who are really upset when they're when the mandate is
Speaker 3: let's get back to the office, they don't want They
Speaker 3: much prefer this. They don't want to get back to
Speaker 3: the office. Is that I'm not sure if this is
Speaker 3: your area, But is that a does this totally compensate
Speaker 3: or or are we missing out on something by not
Speaker 3: gathering at our workplaces and having real contact.
Speaker 5: Well I'm smiling because I worked with a number of companies,
Speaker 5: with the executives and the companies to figure out how
Speaker 5: to communicate with their employees during the during the pandemic,
Speaker 5: and they when of the pandemics started easing, set up
Speaker 5: these task forces and committees to study what what would
Speaker 5: be the ideal amount of time in office versus on
Speaker 5: Zoom or on video comfting. And one company I remember
Speaker 5: in particularly because this happened pretty recently, studied the problem
Speaker 5: for six months. They had a vast team of employees
Speaker 5: at all levels of the organization to figure this out,
Speaker 5: and they came up triumphantly with the idea that three
Speaker 5: days a month was the perfect amount, so everybody in
Speaker 5: office to be in the office the rest of the
Speaker 5: time you can work on Zoom. And this was because
Speaker 5: of productivity and savings in terms of how much office
Speaker 5: space you needed and travel and so on and so forth.
Speaker 5: The policy had been in place for three weeks when
Speaker 5: the executive team announced, okay, it's three days a week.
Speaker 5: They threw out all the research and just changed it
Speaker 5: in the moment. Why because executives don't feel like they
Speaker 5: can do what they're hired to do, which is manage
Speaker 5: people effectively on Zoom. And the truth is you can't.
Speaker 5: Managing is still pretty much a face to face thing
Speaker 5: because of all the nuances of human emotion and interaction
Speaker 5: that we talked a little bit about earlier. So they
Speaker 5: they can't do it, but it's very it's very hard
Speaker 5: on the employees who feel like, wait a minute, I
Speaker 5: have to go back to commuting. I have to go
Speaker 5: back to putting on long pants and the press shirt.
Speaker 3: I have to long pants. How about just pants? Curing?
Speaker 5: I mean, give me yes, please, looking I can't take
Speaker 5: my dog for a walk. You know a lot of
Speaker 5: things that I got used to doing. Hang out with
Speaker 5: my kids for an hour during the middle of the
Speaker 5: day when they come home from school. You know, those
Speaker 5: kind of things really made for a nice quality of life.
Speaker 5: And by the way, most of those employees were more productive,
Speaker 5: but it didn't work for the management and guess who
Speaker 5: runs companies.
Speaker 3: And the management teams.
Speaker 4: Research showed that eye contact is important and people don't
Speaker 4: make eye contact as much on Zoom. And then I
Speaker 4: saw also with interviews, especially a first interviews, job much
Speaker 4: more negative if the interview is done on Zoom than
Speaker 4: it's done on person because they can't get all of
Speaker 4: the rest of the stuff. So again, are they trying
Speaker 4: to Is there a way to make Zoom better from
Speaker 4: a communication standpoint that you see.
Speaker 5: The real reason that you have those experiences, The real
Speaker 5: reason Zoom or any video communication isn't really great yet
Speaker 5: is something that they don't teach you about in school.
Speaker 5: It's called appropriate reception. It's your sixth sense, and it's
Speaker 5: the sense that you use unconsciously to keep track of
Speaker 5: where you are in space so you don't bump into things,
Speaker 5: and where the people around you are in space. And
Speaker 5: that's very important to us. We care very much whether
Speaker 5: you're moving closer to me or away from me. We
Speaker 5: care if you're within a few feet of me, so
Speaker 5: you're in my personal space versus more distant. So you're
Speaker 5: tracking that all the time, and in fact, you track
Speaker 5: that if you're a partner, if you have one, so
Speaker 5: that you don't roll over and punch your partner in
Speaker 5: the head that night while you're asleep. You're doing this
Speaker 5: twenty four to seven. It's a really important sense, and
Speaker 5: they don't tell you about it in school. So what
Speaker 5: happens on zoom is you two look to me like
Speaker 5: you're about an arm's length away, So that would say
Speaker 5: you're in my personal space and I need to pay
Speaker 5: close attention. But you're the wrong size for that. You're
Speaker 5: too way too tiny to be that close. So my
Speaker 5: proprioception sense goes where the heck are these people, and
Speaker 5: it causes me stress, but I can't work out where
Speaker 5: you are. And so after a while I start to
Speaker 5: tune out, and I say, these people aren't real. They
Speaker 5: I don't know where they are. They're not really in
Speaker 5: my personal space. So I can't interact with them in
Speaker 5: the way that I would if they were as close
Speaker 5: as my next screen was. So yeah, that's the real issue,
Speaker 5: is proprioception.
Speaker 3: I actually worked with an improvisation company that was on
Speaker 3: a Zoom sort of beta test. It was it was
Speaker 3: not Zoom, it was something else where they could move
Speaker 3: forward and back in the screen. They could they could
Speaker 3: sort of keep a distance so it looked like they were,
Speaker 3: you know, further way or if they wanted to emphasize
Speaker 3: something or take the stage. Because it was an improt
Speaker 3: it was a way to do improvisation on a screen.
Speaker 3: They could move forward and move downstage. It was very strange.
Speaker 3: It was really really strange.
Speaker 4: I have to see the propritation you did it unsightfuled
Speaker 4: close talker of the close close talker is the thing.
Speaker 4: The other thing that I read and I just remembered
Speaker 4: it now, is that the person on Zoom is using
Speaker 4: what they call anchorman energy. In other words, you're sitting
Speaker 4: differently than you would when you're just hanging out. You're
Speaker 4: projecting differently, and there's a fatigue to that that everybody
Speaker 4: on there is projecting Anchorman. And whereas if I'm sitting
Speaker 4: with you, I'm at lunch, I'm kind of doing whatever here.
Speaker 4: I have to sit up. I have to be paying
Speaker 4: attention to something.
Speaker 3: You come to take a meeting with me and you
Speaker 3: sit back in your chair with the spread legs like that,
Speaker 3: You're out of here, buddy. I'm not taking that kind
Speaker 3: of attitude from you. The man is an expert, doctor
Speaker 3: is an expert in body language. What do you think
Speaker 3: you're saying to me when you sit back like that
Speaker 3: legs akimbo, with your attitude, with your little attitude. I'm
Speaker 3: picking it up, right, am I?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Dona, you got it, You caught it. I'm sure the
Speaker 3: man is an expert. It's the first thing you're in Sussians,
Speaker 3: your lack of regard or respect, your sort of I
Speaker 3: don't even need to be here. I got it all.
Speaker 4: So all these years we've had a proteo perception problem.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and we didn't and you never told me,
Speaker 4: you know, I didn't have a word.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, guess right, I'm here for you now.
Speaker 4: All right, how do you like that?
Speaker 3: I'm here totally private? Tell me what you gotta tells better?
Speaker 4: Better know why it's better you're off, Mike, you gotta.
Speaker 4: I got a mold.
Speaker 3: It looks it looks like.
Speaker 4: You're off. I was making a point, was making a point.
Speaker 5: But I should have told you about the ultimate space,
Speaker 5: which is the intimate space that's eighteen inches to a zero.
Speaker 5: And and that's a powerful taboo. Only your intimates can
Speaker 5: violate that.
Speaker 3: You're not kidding.
Speaker 4: Eighteen eighteen inches to zero.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's my new my personal space.
Speaker 4: Maybe a little bit wider than zero.
Speaker 3: I got to remember that, doctor, so you talked about
Speaker 3: you know, I know one of the things we started
Speaker 3: this conversation with was texting and how to make texting
Speaker 3: more clear and our intention more clear. But I actually
Speaker 3: worry about all of our sort of text of communication, Mike.
Speaker 3: Like Mike, My older son his college entrance essay was
Speaker 3: about phone phobia. Is phone phobia? Both my sons have
Speaker 3: phone phobia. They are insanely nervous about speaking to someone
Speaker 3: on the phone. They will do anything to avoid it.
Speaker 3: You mean speaking live, speaking live Yeah, And do you
Speaker 3: see any trending in younger people to being worse and
Speaker 3: worse at interpersonal live spoken communication because we're doing so
Speaker 3: much of the texting and the typing, and that I
Speaker 3: just worry that we're getting that having a person a
Speaker 3: person live in space conversation is just going to get
Speaker 3: harder and harder.
Speaker 5: I think there's absolutely no question that that's happening amongst
Speaker 5: especially amongst young people or anybody who spends a lot
Speaker 5: of time texting. And I had a very affecting communication
Speaker 5: from somebody. I was speaking to an audience about these issues,
Speaker 5: and afterwards I got a text, of course from a
Speaker 5: person in the audience who said, I'm I've got social
Speaker 5: phobia of some sort. And for me, being able to
Speaker 5: control what I say and when I send the communication
Speaker 5: and then being able to muse over and think about
Speaker 5: the response, whatever response I may get, and then respond
Speaker 5: to that, for me, that element of control is very
Speaker 5: reassuring and very helpful not to provoke that kind of phobia.
Speaker 5: So at stream it's a more reassuring and comforting setting
Speaker 5: for some people, and I think that will only increase.
Speaker 5: That is, people who like that kind of control and
Speaker 5: that uncertainty, or to reduce that kind of uncertainty will
Speaker 5: only increase the more time we spend in that space,
Speaker 5: because you get unused to you have to practice being
Speaker 5: face to face. It's a whole set of powerful, unconscious
Speaker 5: cues that can overwhelm you if you haven't done it
Speaker 5: for a while.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Sabashian metsicalco do the whole thing about when we
Speaker 4: were growing up, the phone ranging. People ran to get it.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's Grandma. Now the phone rings, and
Speaker 4: I even do this phone rings and go, what.
Speaker 3: The hell is calling?
Speaker 4: It's like going to Saw producer Laurie. She goes into
Speaker 4: fits of rage if you call her. I put a
Speaker 4: clock on the timer because it's just she hates she
Speaker 4: hates the phone. Yeah, and there's a certain generation, the
Speaker 4: generation now, I guess below thirty. Oh my god, it's
Speaker 4: worse than death. Calling and trying what my son what
Speaker 4: I mean? He'd rather just texts me, just let me know.
Speaker 4: I said, it's a little complicated, and I want to
Speaker 4: kind of give you some context there. Yeah, what, well,
Speaker 4: it's it's that. It's it's hit and run communication. Now,
Speaker 4: And you're smiling, doctor, because that's that's where we're at,
Speaker 4: and more and more people hate the phone even coming
Speaker 4: to the house. Somebody comes to your door, Now, who
Speaker 4: the hell comes on? And now you used to be
Speaker 4: oh my god, we got visitors? A yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 4: anybody anybody coming?
Speaker 1: Was like, look we got a visitor. Now get the gun,
Speaker 1: get the lights, get on the floor, yeir, pull the shades.
Speaker 1: What has happened to society that way? You're saying we
Speaker 1: got to practice face to face. People don't want to
Speaker 1: be face to face. It seems like it's going the
Speaker 1: other way pretty rapidly, right.
Speaker 5: It's a it's a negativity bias that comes about, as
Speaker 5: we mentioned earlier, from from virtual communications, because we're not
Speaker 5: getting clear read on the intent. So we got out
Speaker 5: of practice and we assume the worst, and then we
Speaker 5: start to sour on all our human relations.
Speaker 3: I mean, this sounds pretty dire to me. I almost
Speaker 3: feel like I just worry that our ability to communicate
Speaker 3: with each other is some sort of existentially in jeopardy
Speaker 3: at this point. If we're really just reduced to, you know,
Speaker 3: sixteen word texts and an emoji. I just really worry
Speaker 3: about what is it to be a human being?
Speaker 5: Fortunately, Fortunately, we learn to communicate in the cradle from
Speaker 5: our mothers and fathers, and hopefully as long as there's
Speaker 5: a love between parent and child and there's all that
Speaker 5: baby talk and cooing and those interactions that go on,
Speaker 5: that we'll get the basics. And yeah, we'll get a
Speaker 5: little nervous when we turn teenager and start using the
Speaker 5: phone and forget how to talk to humans, but we
Speaker 5: can relearn if we've got that base base there. So
Speaker 5: you know, mom's, dads, keep loving your kids, and I
Speaker 5: think we'll be okay.
Speaker 3: Can I just assume that when my grown or teenage
Speaker 3: children answer me in a monosyllabic frunt that what they're
Speaker 3: saying is I don't want to talk to you. Is
Speaker 3: is that true? Because that's what it feels like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, that's about well you.
Speaker 3: Know what again, See that's what I go to They
Speaker 3: don't want to talk to me. It can be that
Speaker 3: they're having a tough time with something and they don't
Speaker 3: know how to express. I mean, there's all kinds of things.
Speaker 3: I was really strengt I tend to go, oh, few,
Speaker 3: if you're not going to talk to me, I'm your father. Damn.
Speaker 4: My wife would always tell me, leave them alone, don't
Speaker 4: talk to them right now. And Laurie, you're better at
Speaker 4: this from a mom perspective. Don't talk to them right now,
Speaker 4: don't confront stuff. They'll talk when they're ready to talk.
Speaker 4: And the car was magic because you're not looking at it.
Speaker 4: When you're driving your kids somewhere. Usually stuff comes up
Speaker 4: in the car, and I think it's because you're not
Speaker 4: making eye contact and I'm making and there's something safe
Speaker 4: about that. You're going somewhere, something else happening. I wonder, doctors,
Speaker 4: does that make sense to you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 5: It's a body language thing. I recommend people to do
Speaker 5: this as speakers. If they get a lot of aggressive
Speaker 5: questioning from somebody, for example, the thing to do is
Speaker 5: to move toward them, which is counterintuitive and you don't
Speaker 5: feel like doing it. You want to get away, but
Speaker 5: you move toward them, and then you align themselves so
Speaker 5: you're facing in the same direction. So what happens when
Speaker 5: two human beings are facing in the same direction is
Speaker 5: they feel like already they're prime to agree on things.
Speaker 5: So it's much It's much better to sit next to
Speaker 5: your teenager than it is to sit across from them.
Speaker 5: So you want to sit down at the table, make
Speaker 5: eye contact with them. To them, that feels aggressive and
Speaker 5: like you're going to give them twenty twenty questions. If
Speaker 5: you sit next to them, then now we're suddenly aligned.
Speaker 5: We're in agreement before we even.
Speaker 3: Open our problems. I just anecdotally, Peter and I have
Speaker 3: been sitting next to each other for forty episodes. I've
Speaker 3: never had a big miss staying one. I never once.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what you just told me, doctor, my
Speaker 4: son and I are fighting. All we have to do
Speaker 4: is drive to Cleveland and we're gonna figure we can.
Speaker 4: We can figure this out.
Speaker 3: Doctor.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for coming on this. Absolutely. I
Speaker 4: wonder though, if everybody listening, and you're an expert at
Speaker 4: this under thirty is going, yeah, these more on stunt
Speaker 4: because they grew up with it. They grew up with it.
Speaker 4: They get it at second nature. So us even discussing
Speaker 4: it is, why are they talking thinking about it. I'm
Speaker 4: not compromised as far as I.
Speaker 3: Get it, but I actually have one question before you go,
Speaker 3: this is probably impossible, but is there Let's just keep
Speaker 3: it to our world of texting. And I know you
Speaker 3: said emojis are a great idea. Is there a simple
Speaker 3: thing that we could adopt that would make what we
Speaker 3: really intend more clear? Is it more language? Less? Language?
Speaker 3: Is just the emoji? Is there was sort of a
Speaker 3: simple rule for yeah, there is.
Speaker 5: What we're looking for is emotion. I want to know
Speaker 5: what your intent toward me is. Is it positive? Is
Speaker 5: it negative? At the simplest level, is it said in
Speaker 5: a loving tone? I want to know what the tone
Speaker 5: of voices. We started with the example of good job.
Speaker 5: You can say that with a warm, friendly good job,
Speaker 5: or you can say it with an eye roll and
Speaker 5: mean it sarcastically. So if you're not using emojis, then
Speaker 5: put into the text some positive, loving word that conveys
Speaker 5: what your intent. I'm assuming it is that.
Speaker 3: Kids that even misinterpret I give the thumb up emoji
Speaker 3: and they go, oh, that's like yeah, so.
Speaker 4: What are I do? Jason and miss You No, really,
Speaker 4: I mean our whole show is based on the premise
Speaker 4: that you bsked with your first answer you gave me,
Speaker 4: so we go right to know? Really? Yeah, so is
Speaker 4: that I guess to know?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 4: Part of this is the subtext of explaining what I
Speaker 4: just meant and almost joking with Laurie when I said, hey,
Speaker 4: looking forward to seeing you said with empathy and understanding, caring,
Speaker 4: and then you figure it that's that you're being. Now
Speaker 4: you're being starcastic. Well, thank you.
Speaker 3: The whole world has become marriage therapy. I get it. Okay, doctor,
Speaker 3: thank you for coming on. Thank you so much. So Ja.
Speaker 4: I know I didn't say anything while we were on
Speaker 4: with the doctor. But body language, I mean a big
Speaker 4: part of this is body language. And I know, I
Speaker 4: think I know how you feel about Why don't you
Speaker 4: tell everybody what's your sense of body language?
Speaker 3: Not a thing? It's not a thing. And what makes
Speaker 3: me crazy? I mean, I'm sure there's a little bit
Speaker 3: to it, but in general what always made me crazy.
Speaker 3: You'd see like a presidential debate and then you'd go
Speaker 3: to the CNN panel and two people with the body
Speaker 3: language experts, and when he said this, he was insecure,
Speaker 3: and when she said that she was attracted to him?
Speaker 3: Or would you go what what?
Speaker 4: I was on radio for how many years? And I
Speaker 4: was always pitch after every debate body iriage expert and
Speaker 4: I never had one on I'll tell you why. I'll
Speaker 4: tell you what. He was hunched over and looked severe.
Speaker 4: He ate chili for lunch, and it's kicking back. He
Speaker 4: just realized his taxes, his account going right before.
Speaker 3: You don't know what's going on. And the other thing
Speaker 3: is and I and again, I do believe I honestly
Speaker 3: when I say it's not a thing, I'm kind of joking.
Speaker 3: I understand there is real research behind this information. But
Speaker 3: if I sit next to a dour teenager and I
Speaker 3: sit side by side with him in a in a
Speaker 3: restaurant booth, I know I'm now more uncomfortable because I
Speaker 3: got this dour energy sitting right off my and I've
Speaker 3: never had a substantive conversation except in a car. Par
Speaker 3: does work. Par does work. I've never had a substantive
Speaker 3: conversation with somebody sitting next to me facing the same
Speaker 3: direction I've never done.
Speaker 4: Look at this poket where we face. Well, it's the
Speaker 4: most substance thing you do.
Speaker 3: Let we're sharing it. I get paid for it. Actually
Speaker 3: I haven't gotten paid wonder headset for this yet. What
Speaker 3: is the money to your body language?
Speaker 4: Right now?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Your body language only change. I'll tell you the other thing,
Speaker 3: the emoji thing. He's He's not wrong, but again, even
Speaker 3: by his own admission. There's so many of them. We
Speaker 3: don't know what they mean.
Speaker 4: Now, the laughing guy with the tears what anybody in
Speaker 4: the other room, anybody in that room, Come on, everybody
Speaker 4: in there is like thirty.
Speaker 3: What could it be? Is it a gang sign?
Speaker 4: What could it be?
Speaker 3: Is it like the tear drop sign in a prison?
Speaker 3: Looking it up right now? When we go to him
Speaker 3: like are we doing are we doing hieroglyphics? Now? Are
Speaker 3: we going back to that? We're just going to communicate
Speaker 3: with each other, like off the wall. The only save things.
Speaker 4: Motor Laurie does to me that I hate more than
Speaker 4: L O L Hi. How I decided to go in
Speaker 4: the hospital. I'm gonna give you the kidney, they say
Speaker 4: the recovery because if I have some other stuff wrong
Speaker 4: with me, maybe a tough recovery of three or four weeks,
Speaker 4: but it's not gonna deter me. I'm gonna I decide,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna donate my kidney to you.
Speaker 3: And you get liked.
Speaker 6: You get liked like the guy you didn't even have
Speaker 6: enough of a immertional have the end of you're a
Speaker 6: freaking kidney like look liked. You can't your thumbs, you
Speaker 6: can't type something back?
Speaker 4: My god, that makes me crazy. How I'm in a cave?
Speaker 4: Come got me thumb?
Speaker 3: You don't understand that, and the abbreviations don't help, all right,
Speaker 3: so here we go.
Speaker 4: I got some abbreviations if you want to be okay, sure,
Speaker 4: and I don't know. Can I curse? Will bleep it?
Speaker 3: Yes? Okay? Well G O A T that greatest of all? Okay, right?
Speaker 3: I d G A F you know what? I d
Speaker 3: G A F S. I don't jump close close big
Speaker 3: given't okay?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep? P O S What is if your team
Speaker 4: sends your p O S?
Speaker 3: What is p O S e O S? Point of service?
Speaker 4: Parent over shoulder, parent over shoulder? What's QQ mean? Let
Speaker 4: me send you QQ q Q quick quick, quick quick crime.
Speaker 4: It's often you sarcastically like in other words, yeah you,
Speaker 4: but sarcastically crying. In other words, you hurt my feelings?
Speaker 3: Not you know crime? How does QQ convey that? I'm
Speaker 3: just telling you I didn't write these. Oh, you're into
Speaker 3: a whole different way. T D p M T d
Speaker 3: d M touching down.
Speaker 4: There talk dirty to me S S d D.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a sexually transmitted this same.
Speaker 4: Stuff, different day. This and this is my favorite because
Speaker 4: if you took the time to send this t L
Speaker 4: D R t l A too long, didn't read your mother,
Speaker 4: that's like I never saw it, not anyway, a little
Speaker 4: bit of an education.
Speaker 3: Everybody gets it wrong. That's what I and I everybody
Speaker 3: tell you. You can't say anything right. You can't.
Speaker 4: Let's go to go going, So.
Speaker 3: Jason, I have a correction.
Speaker 4: This is the second time I've had.
Speaker 3: This.
Speaker 7: The saber tooth cat and Homo sapiens were on the
Speaker 7: Earth at the same time.
Speaker 3: They weren't at the LaBrea tarpets at the same time.
Speaker 3: That's all I know. You know what I can tell
Speaker 3: you because there's the Labria tarpets. They go out of
Speaker 3: the way to say Homo sapiens. This is a man
Speaker 3: by the way.
Speaker 4: You can't correct because he'll go but they weren't the
Speaker 4: same place at the same time. He always comes up
Speaker 4: with the next But how did they know what?
Speaker 3: There couldn't have been a guy in Bayonne, New Jersey
Speaker 3: while they were saying no saber toothed time. I do, okay, I,
Speaker 3: but believe you, I have nothing else. This is relatively news.
Speaker 7: Signs that was discovered not do are along, So perhaps
Speaker 7: they've changed their talking.
Speaker 3: That's what did not exist. Almost apparently they found three
Speaker 3: guys next to us.
Speaker 7: They may have they may have interacted. It's probably in Europe,
Speaker 7: but they may have interacted. But that that's a little
Speaker 7: bit all right, I stand correct now. Now, if you
Speaker 7: are being confused by a lot of the things that
Speaker 7: Peter was throwing at, you know, let's say, what.
Speaker 3: Is r O F l uh oh, that's one that
Speaker 3: comes around a lot right on you frigging are you
Speaker 3: rolling on the lower laughing?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So if that is too much for you to type,
Speaker 7: it has an emoji to replace it.
Speaker 3: So if those are too tough, they're emoji. So it's
Speaker 3: an emoji.
Speaker 8: It's the happy face with smile that is twisted a
Speaker 8: little bit to the side, with tears coming out, and
Speaker 8: there's a lot of squinting.
Speaker 3: That's what doesn't that's what the teenager couldn't tell his
Speaker 3: father that that's what that means.
Speaker 8: No, that's the instead of rolling on the floor laughter,
Speaker 8: you will replace that with the emoji with it.
Speaker 3: With the doctor said that that the smiling with the
Speaker 3: spirting eyes. As teenager said, you don't even know what
Speaker 3: that means anymore? Dad, And it was like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a digger we should never use. Well, they have
Speaker 3: a lot of them.
Speaker 8: Now there's there's face with tears of joy, which is
Speaker 8: very similar to rolling on the floor lamp or you
Speaker 8: have loudly crying face, which is you know whatever. There
Speaker 8: are tears of joy, there are tears of sadness.
Speaker 3: So you know what I think, it's let's let's let's
Speaker 3: do final you know my.
Speaker 7: Find yourself, you come about, you got it, you could
Speaker 7: do it, You could do it.
Speaker 3: You know something.
Speaker 4: Here's my final thought right now. You know what my
Speaker 4: final thought is. They get older, Laurie's gonna love this.
Speaker 4: I'm not calling any I'm not reaching out to anybody.
Speaker 4: I'm not talking to anybody. I'm just sitting in my
Speaker 4: bedroom in my underpants, watching shows all day long. Because
Speaker 4: now they scream. I'm just gonna scream till I die.
Speaker 3: I hear. Not reaching out. I'm gonna sit right beside
Speaker 3: you and will agree. Thank What do you think of that? Well,
Speaker 3: in the same underwear, looking in the same direction, n r.
Speaker 4: O, not reaching out, not reaching out or naked reaching out?
Speaker 3: So good night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's it. I'm done, Laura. I'm never calling
Speaker 4: you again. Right to us, let us thought about an
Speaker 4: emoji two thumbs up. You know what that means up here?
Speaker 4: I know from Lauri, even not as misread as exactly
Speaker 4: what it means.
Speaker 3: And I thank you for listening to another damn it,
Speaker 3: Thank you, Laurie.
Speaker 4: An episode of Really No Really? What did you mean
Speaker 4: by that? What did you mean by.
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Really? Now?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 3: As another episode of Really.
Speaker 2: Really comes to a closure, possibly wondering, has a miscommunication
Speaker 2: ever resulted in tragedy on an enormous scale? Well you
Speaker 2: can probably guess. But before I give you the details,
Speaker 2: let's thank our guest, doctor Nick Morgan. You can follow
Speaker 2: doctor Morgan online at public words dot com. His podcast
Speaker 2: is called Just One Question, and you can follow him
Speaker 2: on Instagram, X and Facebook where he is doctor Nick Morgan.
Speaker 2: You can find us online at reallynoreally dot com, where
Speaker 2: all the social media links are in the show notes.
Speaker 2: We're also on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and threads at Really
Speaker 2: No Really Podcasts. Please check out our full episodes on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Hit that subscribe button and tick that bills You're updated
Speaker 2: for new videos and thank you for listening, subscribing herd emoji,
Speaker 2: and sharing the show. We release new episodes of Really
Speaker 2: No Really every Tuesday, so make sure to follow us
Speaker 2: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts and now has a miscommunication ever resulted in
Speaker 2: unspeakable tragedy?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: At the end of World War Two, the Allied leaders
Speaker 2: of America, Britain, Russia, and China called for Japan to
Speaker 2: surrender unconditionally to avoid not only a land invasion but
Speaker 2: the potential deployment of America's newly developed nuclear bombs. In response,
Speaker 2: the Japanese Prime Minister uttered the single word mo kasatsu. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: mokusatsu has several meanings depending on context. The Prime Minister
Speaker 2: had meant it to mean no comment. However, it was
Speaker 2: translated to the Allied leaders to mean not worthy of comment,
Speaker 2: held in contempt. So instead of saying we're not ready
Speaker 2: to answer, it was heard as your offer isn't even
Speaker 2: worthy of an answer, A truly horrific tragedy partially due
Speaker 2: to miscommunication. Really No, Really, Really No Really is the
Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment