Reading Tone: Part 4

Welcome to Reading Tone, Part 4! ☀️

Thank you for reading all of the posts so far and thanks for contributing to the conversation in our chat space! Today’s lesson is one that’s often difficult for me to abide by, and that’s do NOT assume you know how the other person feels!

First, it’s important that we remember chats/texts aren’t just short, they’re often incomplete.

With text/chat messages, we are pretty much guaranteed to be missing information. When we read a text, we can’t help but try to fill in the gaps with the information we do have. We automatically start thinking about how we would feel in the situation the texter is describing.

Unfortunately, there are huge individual differences in how people feel in any given situation. For example, if I am an athlete, playing sports likely makes me happy; if I am a little bit clumsy, playing sports ⚽️ 🏈 🏀 might be really frustrating.

The emotions that emerge in a given context are highly dependent on our unique 🦄 perspectives and experiences, which makes it is very difficult for us to guess how someone else is feeling.

Always double-check with yourself to see if you are drawing conclusions based on some emotional information or if you are making assumptions based solely on the context the person is in.