On Jan. 25, the ETSU and Ballad Health Strong Building Resilience through ACEs Informed Networking Institute held its second town hall conversation titled “Before you Hit Send: Conversations about Resilient Electronic Communication.”
“One of our goals here is to have a conversation about resilience, informed principles and how we can embed those in daily and all correspondence,” said Wallace E. Dixon, ETSU chair and professor of psychology. “But especially our electronic correspondence, which is always so rapid and potentially knee jerk like.”
The meeting opened with an explanation of the six guiding principles to trauma-induced framework and how our various backgrounds influence how we react and communicate.
Joe Bidwell, professor and interim dean of ETSU’s College of Arts and Sciences opened a discussion around different examples of email interactions.
“The one thing about these methods of communication that really intrigued me, if you will, is that they’re so common, and it often doesn’t take much of an adjustment to turn an email from one that’s scary music to something that’s relaxing music, you know, and so on,” said Bidwell.
Examples ranged from divisive questions, to short responses, to worrisome requests.
In each instance, they discussed how every side of the interaction had different preconceptions and backgrounds and how each need to take time to reflect on how to best communicate.
One example they discussed was the different types of salutations, or the lack thereof, and how they can create different reactions and perceptions.
“I’ve actually developed opinions of people based on receiving e-mails, and we all know folks who just will write an email with no salutation,” said Bidwell. “And I actually had an image of somebody who would repeatedly do this to me, and I thought they’re probably a kind of a cranky person.”
Participants suggested that professors or those in positions of authority address the proper ways of communications in the first meeting or syllabus.
For more information, visit https://www.etsu.edu/institute/strong-brain/newsletter/default.php.
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