Research Methods Course at The University of Cincinnati, Design, Art, Architecture and Planning (DAAP), 2019. Primary and Secondary Research, Data Visualization (InDesign)
Communication Across Generations.
Have we lost personal connection in our communication?
That’s a question I asked when I began my first assignment. We were tasked with interviewing members of our family across generations about a topic of our choice so that we may discover associations across the participants.
At the beginning of the project, I had a broad curiosity in the way communication has changed over time. However, after my first interview with my mother, I realized how important meaningful connections meant to her and how emotional she became when talking about past communication, I chose to focus in on the intent of communication in both the past and the present and how it’s changed over time.
Specifically– why are we communicating?
What are the tools we are using and how has it changed over the course of 50 years?
Has the frequency of our communication changed?
Have these tools helped us to build relationships or have they distanced us further apart?
How does each generation feel about the way we communicate?
Are there similarities and where is the tension?
If we can understand our differences and why we communicate in the way we do– perhaps we can reconcile those differences and make meaningful connections across generations.
Method: Interviews
Interviews were conducted with my mom, husband and son. The questions were curated before the interviews; however, I did change the questions slightly for each interview in order for the questions to be relevant for each generation. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.
Example Interview Question:
If you could change one thing about how we communicate today, what would that be?
(Mom) I’d take take away the instant access to everything so that people have to talk to face-to-face again.
Why?
(Mom) Because we’ve become a society where we sit at the dinner table and instead of looking at each other and talking, we talk into our telephones. People don’t know what their parents think, they don’t know what their kids think. They know what social media says. They know what they put on Facebook, which is always going to be there best foot forward, but they don’t really get involved with each other anymore. It makes me kind of sad.
Method: Coding and Analysis
I coded the interviews using google sheets. Each cell was given a color: mom- orange, husband- dark blue, and son-light blue. I categorized each quote from the interview by organizing them by personal, informational and professional communication and gave them a positive, negative or neutral ranking towards the current communication technologies based on the tone of the quote. I compared and contrasted data to find emerging themes.
Insights from my mom
The four biggest takeways from my mom’s interview are shown below. The most important quote is colored orange.
Insights from my husband
The four biggest takeways from my husband’s interview are shown below. The most important quote is colored dark blue.
Insights from my son
The four biggest takeways from my son’s interview are shown below. The most important quote is colored light blue.
Key Findings
The orange circles are things my mom said in her interview and they directly contrast with the dark blue circles, said by my husband, and the light blue circles, said by my son. My question is: Can we bridge the gap between generations?
Data Visualization of Findings
Timeline Poster shows the type of communication used by participants (large to small circles and colored circle representing a member of the family).
The BANS across the top highlight the number of communication mentions, how many were digital and how many were positive towards current technologies.
I also outlined the method of communication (from newspapers to an Apple watch).
Secondary data was used along the bottom of the timeline to understand the technological advances the happened during the last fifty years– specifically the advances from analog to digital and when they happened in order to understand the shift in communication and the tools that we use. I researched the different generations groups that are presented in this survey to gain more insights into their characteristics and motivations. This information helped me form a backdrop to my interviews in order to see the bigger picture.
Conclusion
Considering this is not a formal survey with multiple participants that represent the population, I cannot draw enough evidence to support factual conclusions. However, I believe that the information that came out of these interviews is very telling of what is happening in our society. It seems to me that we may be intertwining or perhaps confusing information communication with meaningful communication. Could this be a contributing factor towards the mental health crisis in our country?
Technology and design have progressed us forward in the past, but perhaps there is a smarter way to use technology in the future and still have room for meaningful connections.
Results
Although I can’t say that my family has completely overhauled the way we use communication; this project has made us aware of our communication habits and that is half the battle. We have also made an effort to communicate to each other in the way we feel is most valued to the other person. For example, the phones goes away at the dinner table. Small everyday acts have had a big impact.