Learning How to Communicate with Others Through Our Stories

                   

When you think about communicating, do you also think about technology? I think most of the people we’ll say, yes. But what about if the person we are trying to communicate with doesn’t use, have access, or simply don’t care about technology? It’ll be hard to reach out to him, right? And immediately comes to my mind, in this high tech / virtually era, especially after a pandemic, technology not only shapes our own stories but also rewrites some of our values; it seems almost unbelievable that nowadays someone don’t have an Instagram, Facebook or any other social media account. But we don’t even bother to think about the why?

On my personal experience, coming to the States from Mexico, having the latest-newest-fastest phone, laptop or headphones wasn’t a priority; first, because of the acquisition power difference between the countries and second, because I honestly didn’t care that much. As soon as I moved here, with an American host family, they gave me the latest iPhone and Mac that was available, and I remember telling them that I couldn’t accept them because it was too much and I was also afraid to lose them -yes, I’m that clumsy- and their answer was: How are you going to communicate with your family in Mexico then?

I ended up accepted them and that was all; but now, I think, they didn’t event take the time to get to know me, my family, neither my story. What did they really know about me, my family members, and my relationship with them? Probably nothing, probably they just made assumptions on my social media posts, which don’t get me wrong, the gesture was genuine and with good intentions, but it makes me reflect about how easy we make assumptions or event opinions on other people’s lives or stories from what we see on a screen, but do we really know them? Are we willing to take the time to hear them and their stories? 👀