Question

Give at least one personal example of where a text message, email, or social media post was misinterpreted primarily because of the limitations of verbal-only communication? Why would be it less likely to be misinterpreted in person?

Answer 1

The limitations of the text message, email or a post over social media is that these offers us only the written words. Written words are unable to express our emotions and feelings than a face-to-face conversation could. The written form of communication limits us in expressing our real intention and emotions. For example- A face-to-face message against rape and brutalities against minor girls could be expressed with more emotions even though we have limitations with our vocabulary and grammatical rules, as our pitch, tone expressions rightly conveys our emotions and stance on this matter. Whereas, in a written text we have to think, consciously choose our words, take care of our punctuations and grammatical rules etc, all these things limits us in correctly conveying our intention while delivering the message.