WHETHER positive or negative, life transitions cause us to leave behind the familiar and force us to adjust to new ways of living, at least temporarily. They can leave us feeling completely unprepared and we may be thrown into a personal crisis, feeling shocked, angry, sad, and withdrawn.
Do you remember, my dear readers, what I wrote already months ago at this corner? Our life will never be the way it used to be. Everything in our life changed. Really everything.
Writer David Robson gets to the point in a nutshell: âOnline, as in real-life, itâs not just what you say â but how you say it.â
In a time of such major change, feeling a little out of control or scared or depressed is normal. Ysou shouldnât push yourself too much or set your expectations too high as you wonât be functioning at 100% right now, so give yourself a break when you need it. If youâre finding it hard, donât be hard on yourself.
Think about the last work email that you sent. Did its sentences end with full stops or exclamation marks, or did you forget punctuation altogether? Was it peppered with emoji â or plain text? And was your response prompt, or did you have to apologize for the time it had taken to reply?
Now, consider your last Zoom call. Did you check your phone or email at least once during the meeting? And did you pause to be sure that the other speaker had finished? Or did you find yourself frequently interrupting their sentences, as you failed to take into account the slight delays in the connection?
According to the leadership expert Erica Dhawan, these are all examples of our âdigital body languageâ â a concept that serves as the title of her new book. Like our in-person physical body language, digital body language concerns the subtle cues that signal things like our mood or engagement, and change the meaning of the words we say â be it in text, on the phone or in a video call.
It took me almost a whole year, but right now allow me to tell you: donât feel shy about adopting these more informal digital cues, where appropriate â and be aware that others may well be expecting them.
Broadly, your use of punctuation and emojis are part of a bigger set of cues that will establish the tone of your exchanges â whether they feel formal or informal, enthusiastic or bored. Other signals will include your greetings (whether you include a friendly âHelloâ at the start of the message or simply dive straight in), and your sign off (an emotionally distant âRegardsâ versus an enthusiastic âThanks!â).
Honestly, sometimes I’m really getting tired of video calls and zoom meetings. They present their own unique problems. Your body language, manners and level of engagement on video-chat platforms can influence how colleagues see you and interpret your message. Even during my online teaching, I observed some students being absent-minded or even not being dressed well.
In the past, the handshake, the smile and the smile gave us many well trusted signals â but in online communication, our gratitude is often less apparent, or may not be expressed at all. Measures to remedy this could be as simple as sending a follow-up email, after a virtual meeting, to make it clear that you valued someoneâs input, or ccâing a junior colleague on an email to a client, acknowledging the role they played in a project. We canât just assume that our colleagues will know how much we value them.
Erica Dhawanâs book Digital Body Language is out now from St. Martinâs Press. I learned a lot from her, especially perfecting our digital body language will take practice â but a few moments of thought each day may save hours of anxiety and confusion in the days and weeks ahead.
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