Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to mind your manners online. It is easy
Speaker 1: to be a little more curt and a little less
Speaker 1: courteous from behind a screen, but communication is still communication.
Speaker 1: People are still people. A little niceness goes a long way.
Speaker 1: So I recently read Charles Dohigg's new book Super Communicators.
Speaker 1: Over the past few weeks I shared a few tips
Speaker 1: from the book. Today's tip comes from something he mentions
Speaker 1: just in passing that in one study, all it took
Speaker 1: was adding the words thank you and please to a
Speaker 1: series of online arguments while everything else stayed the same
Speaker 1: to reduce tensions. This is fascinating, but not really that surprising.
Speaker 1: It is hard to read emotions and context into printed words.
Speaker 1: When someone is speaking, we pick up on all sorts
Speaker 1: of non verbal cues, but those are completely absent in
Speaker 1: most online communication. People read sarcasm as real emotion. It
Speaker 1: is easy to choose the least charitable explanation for whatever
Speaker 1: is said, but the words please and thank you change
Speaker 1: that entirely. If you say thank you for sharing that
Speaker 1: and then say why you disagree with a previous comment.
Speaker 1: It comes across less as a personal attack and more
Speaker 1: like a calm debate. Asking a question and then saying
Speaker 1: please let me know comes across as a reasonable request
Speaker 1: rather than a demand. Of course, the temperature gets turned down. Now.
Speaker 1: I am not entirely sure that it is worth engaging
Speaker 1: in most online debates. I am not sure that anyone
Speaker 1: has changed their perspective on something because a stranger on
Speaker 1: the internet told them that they should. That said, if
Speaker 1: you are spending your time engaged in online debates, then
Speaker 1: simply adding a few pleases and thank yous in your
Speaker 1: language might make the whole thing more constructive. And if
Speaker 1: you wind up in a debate in an online community
Speaker 1: that you do value and in which you do know
Speaker 1: the people, then making sure to add some pleases and
Speaker 1: thank yous is doubly important. You can hopefully focus on
Speaker 1: finding a compromise or at least a solution people can
Speaker 1: live with, rather than making things feel personal. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's easy to forget this. So one thing I've been
Speaker 1: doing lately is double checking emails before I send them
Speaker 1: to make sure I do come across as polite, often
Speaker 1: adding the words please and thank you go a long
Speaker 1: way toward doing that. If someone disagrees vehemently with me
Speaker 1: on something, opening an email with thank you for your note,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate your reading my work goes a long
Speaker 1: way toward keeping things civil, and it's only when things
Speaker 1: are civil that anything can happen. Yelling just makes everyone
Speaker 1: retreat to their trenches, even when yelling only looks like
Speaker 1: words on a screen. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,