Sunday, November 11, 2012

Communication Skills in Actions


            This week our task was very interesting. We were asked to watch a TV show on mute and then watch it with volume. I felt as though I was watching something in a completely different language. I had to rely on the nonverbal cues of the actors which was difficult when there were none that were noticeable. I chose to watch a NBC primetime show titled “Guys with Kids.” I have seen previews for this show, but I never watched a full episode.

            The show is about three married men with children and their day-to-day situations. Watching the show without the volume was difficult but slightly entertaining. I was able to understand when they were talking about their children because of their hand gestures and facial expressions. The three men are clearly best friends and they all live in the same apartment building. Throughout the show, I could understand emotions of happiness, frustration, and apologetic.

            When I turned the volume back up and watched the show for the second time, I noticed my assumptions were spot on. In this episode, two of the fathers were trying to get their children out of a locked bathroom. This situation put a strain on their friendship, which led to an argument, which ended with them apologizing at the end of the show. This sequence was easily understood from their nonverbal cues and better understood when the volume was up and verbal communication was added. The other guy was organizing his apartment to remove all of the clutter. That proved to be difficult for them, but all was well by the end.

            Overall, the show was ok. However, I probably will not watch another episode. If I do, I prefer to watch it without sound and infer what is happening; especially with the storyline being so basic and predictable (in my opinion).

3 comments:

  1. Ryan,

    In my experience, with this assignment, I found it difficult at first to focus only on their nonverbal communication because I wanted to hear what was happening. I think if I had watched the show before it would not be so difficult. I watched an episode of "Guys with Kids" and I agree the story line is predictable. It did have humorous parts but not enough for me to watch it again.

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  2. This assignment was kind of hard for me to do because I had to found a TV show that I knew nothing about. It was hard to tell what it was about of what was all the gestures was for. It was hard to even sit in silent to watch the show. There were many times I wanted to know what was going on because of the neck rolling and eyes rolling. I too, have seen previews of this show be never watch it. I hardly even watch TV.

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  3. Hello Ryan,

    This assignment was very interesting as well as entertaining. This week I think I took away the lesson of how not to create certain facial expressions. My husband is always telling me that I have frown on my face. When communicating with him I consider it a look of confusion when I don’t understand something.
    I have learned that this is called channel discrepancy, which is a situation in which one set of behaviors says one thing and another set says something different.

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