Listening to the voice

When an overwhelming majority of people is preferring to communicate with others through text messages and are preferring to send email or text messages in order to save time, researchers have come out with an interesting finding that a phone call – even if it is very brief – is more likely to produce the feeling of connectedness, and thus create more effective and trustworthy communication. Findings of a study conducted by a team of researchers headed by Indian-origin scholar Amit Kumar of the University of Texas, US, which were published in the recent issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology, have also revealed that people choose to type and text their messages because they believe that a phone call would be more awkward, which has been found to be wrong. Amit Kumar's team of researchers have found that it wasn't more awkward to hear each other's voices, and that hearing the voice generates a feeling of assurance too. The large majority of people who responded to their research questions have also admitted that they felt significantly more connected when they communicated by talking and hearing each other's voice than by typing. People have also said that they feel significantly more connected through voice-based media. But then, there is this feeling that making a voice call might appear to be an 'out-dated' mode of communication and that texting was the fashion now, which however is in reality not. About 200 people covered by the study also by and large confirmed thaCommunicationt the phone or voice call went much better than an email, SMS or a whatsapp message. Moreover, when it came to actual experience, people reported that they did form a significantly stronger bond with their old friend on the phone in comparison to emails and text messages. Communication, after all, is not just passing on a message and confirming the receipt of the same. No doubt the study has found that the voice itself — even without visual cues — seemed to be integral to bonding. So, next time you want to connect with a friend, or even a stranger, prefer to make a voice call rather than just sending a text message.