Friday, September 30, 2016

Realization From Some Communication

On Thursday September 29, 2016 I was faced with the task of a self-analyzing myself relating to the way I communicate with those around me. Initially I was excited about the assignment because human interaction is something that I find puzzling at times and yet alluring at others. I believed I had a pretty good understanding of the way I treat people and how I let them know my thoughts or what message I convey with my body language. Through the process of self-analysis I was able to recognize patterns and become more aware of how I interact with those that are close to me and those that are not.
I was traveling to Holy Cross with my volleyball team on Thursday. The bus ride was 8 hours, we got up at 8 in the morning and then got to Boston around 4 p.m. so for the beginning of the day my interaction was with the people that I would consider to be the people that are closest to me at Loyola. I went to boulder in the morning with my best friend Puddy and because we are close the conversation was flowing and personal space between the two of us was limited. We both matched for traveling and because of our appearance I would assume people respected us. I tend to smile a lot and say hi to strangers. There was a guy on the crew team who I didn’t know and I said hi to him while we were on our way to the locker room. After breakfast my teammates and I went on the bus. I greeted most of the with a smile and a “GOODMORNING!” I noticed I am quite lively in the morning. Once my teammates and I were on the bus my interactions with others slimmed.  I plugged into my earphones and listened to music. Interestingly I stayed in contact with the people around me because I used Snap Chat a lot. Instead of talking to the people around me I was Snap Chatting them. For most of the duration of the bus ride I was in my own world. I made funny faces occasionally to my teammates but did not vocally communicate with others until we were about an hour away from our destination. I noticed that I use Snap Chat to generate a lot of laughter with those around me. Besides Snap Chat, I use Facebook but it isn’t something I use a lot. When my teammates and I got to Boston I was very talkative and was in other peoples faces and hugging them. I was pretty excited. When we got to dinner we were not allowed to use our phones so that was two hours of no technology.
The things that I learned from this exercise is that I use to Snap Chat a lot to create a comical aspect in the relationships I have with those around me. I also noticed that during the bus ride I still stayed in contact with those around me even though I wasn’t really talking to them. I have come to the conclusion that I am heavily dependent on the positive emotional connection I have with people I interact with. I tend to try to make them laugh or do my best to generate a smile. When I was walking around Boston I believe I give off the message that I am an approachable person even though I may be tall, I am smiling and sociable. During the dinner with no cell phones (no technology at all)  I realized that at first there were small conversations and at times I found myself being a little quiet but that could’ve been because I was tired. I didn’t have snap chat to make people laugh so eventually I started telling stories and the whole table was laughing. I noticed that I was even more aware of those around me at the table and even more aware of the people at other tables. Having meals without cellphones makes them so much better.

Overall I noticed I am very socially aware but I tend to rely on technology at times to create connections. At dinner it took a little warm up but after about 15 minutes there was a sort of flow and the whole table was exchanging stories and laughing without the distraction of our cell phones.

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