iExamen #1

            Personally, I have preferred speaking face-to-face as opposed to electronically for as long as I can remember. So, when I read the guidelines for our first iExamen, my interest was piqued. I decided to observe my own methods of communication on a Sunday, since that is usually the day of the week on which I do the least communicating, and my conclusions confirm what I expected to be true when I started the day.

            I woke up on Sunday morning and almost forgot that I was supposed to keep track of the way I communicate with the people I encounter. I remembered, however, and so my inquiry into my methods of communication began at 9 am. I did not even wake up in my own bed Sunday morning, much less my own building, so naturally that entailed about 25 missed calls and texts from my roommates. As I scrambled to reply to each of my friends to inform them that I was, in fact, alive, I became slightly embarrassed at the fact that I disappeared for 15 hours and could not completely explain myself to them. In turn, I sent a couple of texts along the lines of “we’ll talk about things in person”. I don’t know if my wish to speak about my Saturday night with my friends in person was a result of carelessness at the time I woke up, or if I simply wanted to give myself a reason to leave the room in which I woke up, but I do know that I was much more comfortable when I could elaborate in person. Because of this, I believe that face-to-face conversations serve their purpose more efficiently than text messages when someone has been worrying about you.

            Sunday was also a very somber day for my group of friends, as we attended the memorial mass for our good friend and classmate, Jimi Patrick. Naturally, I was ‘unplugged’ for the hour of service, but I also decided to continue this afterwards at the reception in the Humanities building. There, I shared with Jimi’s grandparents some fond memories of him after an emotional mass, and that’s when I came to another realization about how I communicate: I’m much better at comforting people in person than over the phone or texting. I’m certain this is because of the emotions you can see in a person’s face and body language while speaking to them, but I had never thought about why I could better articulate words of comfort in person. After paying attention to the way I spoke in this setting, I now know that I am more suited to personally console people.

            When I went back to communicating with technology after the reception, the biggest difference was the length of my conversations. Over text and FaceTime, I am more straight to the point when talking to friends than I am in person. I want to say that this is because I don’t like to waste time but that is simply untrue, so it must be due to my propensity to interact in person. Although I arrived at the same conclusion I thought I would, that my communication skills in person are superior to my electronic communication skills, the iExamen still gave me new insight into my own behavior. Because of the first iExamen, I think that I am going to be much more observant of the differences between how I text my friends and how I speak to them from now on.