I Can See What You’re Thinking Thomas Edison State College

Abstract Non-verbal communication is a vital way of communicating in our lives. Intentionally and unintentionally we communication with our body language, gestures, eye-contact and expressions. I have explained a few ways of communicating non-verbally and how non-verbal communication outweighs verbal communication.

I Can See What You’re Thinking Our language is the essence of the entire communication. Our verbal language, or the actual words that we communicate, provide us with the ability to express who we are, what we want, what we need, and what we desire.
Our bodies also communicate along with our voice. A person’s mannerisms convey what he/she is trying to say. We have heard of “Actions speak louder than words” meaning what we do is more important or significant than what we say.
Though verbal communication is important to the communication process it actually only makes up a small percentage of our total communication. Non-verbal communication is anything we communicate, intentional or non-intentional, without using words. Non-verbal communication constitutes of 75 to 95 percent of our total communication. According to Mark Knapp and Judith Hall in their book Non-verbal Communication in Human Interaction, “Clearly non-verbal signals are a critical part of all our communication endeavors. Sometimes non-verbal signals are the most important part of your message. Understanding and effectively using non-verbal behavior is crucial in virtually every sector of our society.”
When you walk into a store, you witness music blaring in the background, the sales girl screaming on top of her lungs, “Hey guys, welcome to the store” or “Hey, how are you?” Sometimes I wonder if they actually mean it. Some of them do wait for us to reply some of them just ask and move on with folding the clothes on