How Does Internet Affect The Way We Communicate?

A while ago someone commented on an article I had written; “Do You Need to Solve Every Issue (Right Away)?”

“Yes,” was the answer, “you should.”

Parking issues is a sign of weakness.

Recently I had been very busy and was not able to write and strangely enough when searching for my way back into the process of writing articles (which is now) it felt hard. It appears that if you interrupted an ongoing process (of article writing) it costs you more energy to get back in. This is probably related to (the fear) of getting a writers block. Thinking, “What the heck was I doing here, writing all those articles?”

But back to communication and the internet. Article writing is an indirect process; You hand over your article and it will be delivered some time later, and the article will be read at another point in time.

The article cycle is therefore an example of asynchronous communication.

This is one of the top features of internet. Most people communicate (over the internet) in a way that they never seems to meet. Like you are getting on the bus, just one moment after someone else has left this same bus through another door. I write an article that get picked up a moment later, I read an article someone had just sent in. As with all the Blogs; People meet each other, but never at the same moment.

E-mail communication is also asynchronous.

Can you remember the time where you didn’t (yet) read e-mails? Less than ten years ago, most of us where not familiar with it.

We all know what synchronous communication is, because we are familiar with phones for more than…a single lifetime. But if you think about the messages sent by people on their mobiles, than that is again an example of an asynchronous way of communication. And these messages are growing day by day.

And my gut-feeling tells me that all added up, all our communication aggregated, is more asynchronous than instantaneously.

Marketing is also a way of asynchronous communication. You send an e-mail to loads of people at one moment. They read the message when they feel comfortable. Think also about the billboards on the highways.

Sales however is again an synchronous form of communication.

And if this is all true what I’m writing — you should put more energy to sales than to marketing. If it is all true…You should write less (articles) and visit the street more often…

© 2006 Hans Bool