Communication Reflection

1. Effective communication involves listening and providing a safe space for others to
share their feelings. The ability to be open and honest with your peers helps create that
safe space. Other communication skills are having good eye contact and speaking in a
clear voice that is easy to hear and understand.

2. We always need effective communication. There are so many aspects of our lives that
we need to be able to communicate and share our ideas. Some of these include school,
athletics, work and our home lives. It’s important to know the difference between how
we need to communicate and to be able to go between the different ways throughout
our day. For example, when at work you may need to be more professional and use
your words more carefully and then when you are at home or with your friends you can
speak more freely.

3. Being able to communicate in different ways can be difficult in terms of getting your
point across and trying to keep what you’re saying interesting. Keeping others engaged
while your talking can be tough and that is a skill that comes in time and practice.
Another part to communication is how you word what you’re saying in more difficult
situations. An example of this is when you might have to fire an employee or break
some bad news to someone that is important to you. Understanding how you to word
what you’re saying correctly in these situations is a skill and requires practice and
careful thought.

4. Sometimes the way we talk to our peers can be affected by who we are talking to.
Something that might affect communication between different genders, races and social
classes could be a language barrier or difference in values or beliefs. When people value
different things, it may be hard to connect to each other and create that bond that
others of the same gender or race might relate too.

5. The development of the internet and social media has totally influenced the way and
the amount of quality communication we have with one another. By texting instead of
having an in person talk, we can’t put expression into our words and use tone to change
the meaning between what we’re saying. The other component is that we are so
addicted to our phones that we lack that in person contact with people because we
would rather be on our phones than hanging out with friends.