Communication Overkill

I do not know the exact name of it, but at some point in our lives most of us have played the game involving a number of people who pass a message to each other. The game usually begins with participants sitting in a circle. One person then whispers a message of some sort into the ear of the person next to them. That second person then whispers the same message into the ear of the person next to them and so on. The message is eventually passed to everyone in the circle until it gets to the last person who says it out loud. Almost always the message has gone through some degree of alteration. It is always fun - and surprising - to see just how much the message has changed from what is was at the beginning to the end.

This simple parlor game serves as a stark reminder of how well we people communicate in terms of what we say and how well we listen. Granted, this will never serve as scientific evidence of our communication abilities but the game does present us with a good snapshot. I am reminded of this game as I and millions of others are subjected to the avalanche of messages in this year's presidential campaign. The two major political parties, their candidates and many spokesmen and women are throwing their talking points at us non-stop and will continue to do so for the next two and a half months. The question is how effective will their messages be? More to the point, how well are we or will we be listening?

It is one thing to have to contend with a single message but quite another to have to process multiple messages being given by multiple people via multiple formats and multiple channels of communication. Given this overwhelming dynamic, it is not surprising that people are either tuning-out all that is being said to them, claim to have already made up their minds about which candidates they are supporting and therefore are no longer listening to what others say, or are finding the whole election process to be totally confusing and off-putting.  If there is such a thing as over-communicating, then this is it. Sadly, the so-called communication experts for each of the major parties do not seem to be learning anything from this. They simply keep raising their voices rather than seeking other ways to communicate more effectively. That is too bad for all of us.