Strengths, Weaknesses and Types of Non Verbal Communication

Strengths, Weaknesses and Types of Non Verbal Communication

What is non verbal communication? Non verbal communication is a process of sending, receiving and transferring information without using words. Messages can be processed through body language, eye contact, facial expression, gestures etc. Non verbal communication is very useful and has lots of advantages over verbal communication. You can communicate to a deaf and mute person through sign languages, military uses hand signals in giving out commands when they are doing convoys, search, and patrol and sending aircrafts out to the runways. It can increase your success rate on job interviews. Making a handshake with your employer gives yourself a "first good impression". It can also strengthen your personal relationship with your partner. By holding hands with your partner, it can give him/her the impression of you are going to be with him/her in times of crisis.

It's true that nonverbal communication has a lot of benefits, but at the same time it also has its disadvantages. Non verbal communication is imprecise. Hand signals, body gestures and facial expressions are not always easily to read. It is often difficult to understand and requires a lot of repetition. You cannot always use it for public tool communication, especially if you're running for a government position. You can't also use it for long conversations and fully express your message.

There are several types of non verbal communication, body movement, face and eyes, voice, touch, appearance, physical space, physical environment and time. The first part of non verbal communication is body movement. It basically talks about body orientations, postures, gestures, facial expression and eye contact. Next is face and eyes, it talks about how people communicate and interpret messages through their faces and eyes. For example winking an eye to a female stranger could mean you like her and smiling could mean something good happen to you. After face and yes is voice and this includes factors such as pitch of the voice, loudness, infection and pitch people use to communicate. Next is touch, and it is used to express affection, familiarity especially in animals, sympathy, sadness when you cry on your partner's shoulder and other emotions. Next is appearance and it talks about our looks when we communicate. It could be our favorite color, the way we dress, hairstyles and physical attractiveness. Physical space is the next one. Under physical space there is distance. You can tell how we feel toward each other by noticing the distance between us. When a couple had a little fight the wife might not sleep with her parent's house and to settle things using that gap between her and the husband. One last thing under physical space is territory. Any space such as your room, workcenter, house or any other physical space is what we assume our own and