activity 7

Nonverbal communication
This activity looked into how a conversation depends on nonverbal conversation just as much as the verbal. For this activity I chose to do this experiment with a close friend of mine. The first part of the activity was the full eye contact part. We went out to lunch and were sitting right across from each other this I thought would be easy, just get a conversation going and make sure to notice their reaction. When my friend started into the conversation I was looking directly at her and would nod my head or make small comments to show I was listening. I could tell that this was making her uncomfortable even for being as good of friends as we are and knowing so much about each other; she still would look away or fiddle with her silverware. When she would look to the side I would lean in that direction to get into her field of view and at one point she even gave me a look like she was wondering if I was all there.
The second part of the activity was where we would not look at the person at all. This was going to be the easy part of the activity. I find myself getting uncomfortable when people stare at me the whole time I’m saying something and find that I look away from them. At this point our food can so I could pretend that I was really into that instead of looking at my friend. I could tell that she was looking at me and waiting for me to look back. I would still nod my head in assurance that I was still listening but I could still sense that she was annoyed that I wasn’t giving her eye contact.
The final part of the activity was the part where we slowly get closer to the person that we are doing the experiment on. For this I was already sitting fairly close to my friend as the tables where small. I slowly would start leaning closer until my friend started leaning back and looking around not making eye contact with me. After the experiment I told my friend about the activity and we started to talk about how when someone doesn’t follow the unwritten rules of having a conversation it makes it awkward and starts to get annoying. It wasn’t until doing this experiment that I became aware of the different “rules” in having a conversation and what it does to the conversation when one or some of them are broken. Everyone likes their space and likes to being acknowledged when they are talking and these are universal codes that we live by. If you where on the receiving end of this experiment what do you think your reactions would be? Do you think that you would have had the same reaction as my friend did or would it be different?