Noise

There are four contexts that can impact our ability to interact with people effectively:

1. Physical Context: The physical space where interaction is occurring (office, school, home, is the space loud, is the furniture comfortable, etc.).
   
   
2. Physiological Context: The body’s responses to what’s happening in its environment.
   a) Internal: Physiological responses that result because of our body’s internal processes (e.g., hunger, a headache, physically tired).
   b) External: Physiological responses that result because of external stimuli within the environment  (e.g., are you cold, are you hot, the color of the room, are you physically comfortable).
   
   
3. Psychological Context: How the human mind responds to what’s occurring within its environment (e.g., emotional state, thoughts, perceptions, intentions, mindfulness).
   
   
4. Semantic Context: The possible understanding and interpretation of different messages sent (e.g., someone’s language, size of vocabulary).
   

In each of these contexts, it’s possible to have things that disturb or interrupts the flow of communication. For example, in the physical context, hard plastic chairs can make you uncomfortable and not want to sit for very long talking to someone. Physiologically, if you have a headache (internal) or if a room is very hot, it can make it hard to concentrate and listen effectively to another person.

Psychologically, if we just broke up with our significant other, we may find it difficult to sit and have a casual conversation with someone while our brains are running a thousand miles a minute.

Semantically, if we don’t understand a word that someone uses, it can prevent us from accurately interpreting someone’s messages.

More often than not, we are completely unaware of how these different contexts create noise and impact our interactions with one another during the moment itself. For example, think about the nature of the physical environments of fast-food restaurants versus fine dining establishments. In fast-food restaurants, the décor is bright, the lighting is bright, the seats are made of hard surfaces (often plastic), they tend to be louder, etc. This noise causes people to eat faster and increase turnover rates. Conversely, fine dining establishments have tablecloths, more comfortable chairs, dimmer lighting, quieter dining, etc. The physical space in a fast-food restaurant hurries interaction and increases turnover. The physical space in the fine dining restaurant slows our interactions, causes us to stay longer, and we spend more money as a result. However, most of us don’t pay that much attention to how physical space is impacting us while we’re having a conversation with another person.

People might think that communication is easy. However, there are a lot of factors, such as power, language, and relationship differences, that can impact the conversation. Communication isn’t easy, because not everyone will have the same interpretation of the message.