Threat of Noise in Communication

I have a bunch of acquaintances - close friends, colleagues - who have a hard time explaining themselves. As a result, they always end up getting misconstrued or brushed aside, which infuriates them even more. And because of this, they end up giving up trying to explain themselves overall, which leads to them being misunderstood in general. But what are the chief barriers of communication that they're facing?

This is a classic example of the illusion of transparency, and the resulting confusion that comes from it. People who have a hard time translating their thoughts into words usually either censor their thoughts or feel very strongly about their thoughts, and so when it comes out, it usually comes out the way it sounds in their heads. But here's the thing: whatever seems clear in your head isn't always clear the way you want it to be clear to others. 

Professional communicators often deal with this issue. In fact, this is one of the first things taught to journalism and communication students: the threat of noise in communication. Simply put, a message that's being shared - to close friends, family, or the public - degrades and becomes harder to understand the more noise barriers it faces. These noise barriers can come from external sources or internal sources. 

The easiest example is signal interference. Your mobile phone receives radio signals from cell towers. When out in the open, and unimpeded by anything other than air, these signals are received by your phone as clearly as it possibly can. But go indoors, and depending on things such as the thickness of walls, the materials surrounding your phone, and other obstructions, the signal gets degraded. A full bar just outside your home can easily degrade to a one-bar signal inside. 

Translating your thought from ideas into words that can be understood by somebody else goes through something similar. The ideas are clearest to you inside your head, because there's no impedance, no interference. But then you go through the first barrier: translating the idea into words that are familiar to you. This shapes the idea because things like vocabulary and language can expand or limit the idea. Somebody with a simpler English vocabulary will just say "The ball is red" which paints a sufficient enough picture, but somebody with a wider command of the English language might say "The ball glows with the light of a dull sun", which doesn't just paint a picture, but also evokes some emotion. 

And then the second barrier comes in: your ability to deliver your words efficiently. Some of the barriers to proper delivery include cadence and accent, and while these don't contribute too much noise, it stands to reason that they still can. Which brings us to the next potential barrier, which is the ability of your listener to hear and understand your words. This is where accent nuances come in, especially when you're dealing with a person whose nationality and place of birth and residence are different from yours. Your accent might sound fine to you and to others with the same nationality, but to this guy, it might prove to be a hindrance to understanding. 

These are just a few of the possible barriers to efficiently and effectively communicating your ideas. But one thing that both communicator and listener have to remember is that, barring malice, misunderstandings are rarely completely the responsibility of just one party, and unless real harm was done, are rarely the fault of one or both. And this shouldn't deter communicators from continuing to express themselves, especially if they legitimately want to get better at it. As with everything, effective communication gets easier the more you try it. The more you communicate openly, the clearer your own personal barriers become to you. This makes it easier to develop techniques to get around these bottlenecks. 

And you know what? The better you become at navigating around your own communication stopgaps, the better you'll get at identifying those your audience might have. So keep on talking.