When you think back in your life to the most important conversations you’ve ever had, where were you?
When you needed to express deep feelings to someone else, or give bad news, or when you debated the deepest questions of life with your friends, what was the setting?
I am guessing most of these interactions happened in person. Maybe not all, and not all the time, but most of us feel like we need to be looking right at other people for the deep stuff, the tough stuff, the conversations that make a change.
When we try to debate nuanced issues on Twitter, or Facebook, or in an internet forum, we are creating the environment to end up more entrenched in our original beliefs than we were when we started out. The medium simply isn’t set up for it. Social media is for quick hits, hot takes—in other words, for transmitting your thought out to others. It rewards extremes, not ambiguity. It feeds fear and division.
In-person conversation is how we understand each other best. We are more empathetic, more compassionate, and better listeners. A group of people debating an issue in the same room together can pause, can shift, can take a break. We can have a quick side conversation that forms connection, then come back with a new perspective on the other people in the room.
Of course, we can have extremes and intractability in person, too (I read the news.) But as a medium for nuanced, decision-making discussion, people who are physically together have an advantage over text on a page on the internet.
If you can’t have your important conversations in person, remember to allow much more grace, forgiveness, and compassion. Take breaks. Check in. Monitor your own emotional state.
The medium matters.
