Tone

The meaning of any message goes beyond the words or ideas conveyed. With any conversation, with any scripture read, with any input and analysis of information, there is the meaning of the words and the tone brought with it. Tone is important no matter who or what a message is speaking to. Understanding tone and using it properly enables us to be more successful and effective with our communication methods. A lack of understanding of tone can cause us to come off in a way that distances our idea from its true meaning. This distance is the opposite of what messages aim to create.

Misunderstandings in tone are commonplace in our society today. Probably the most frequent area where tone is misinterpreted is via text messages or other message-based conversational applications. The reason for this is that there is no inherent tone. When we receive a message, we read the words on our screen, in our own voice. Who we are speaking with does not have the chance to convey with their voice, inflection, emotion, and body language, the true tone behind their message. Many people, including myself, have found themselves in positions where the typed-out messages were interpreted in a way they were not intended to be. In a medium where tone is not clear, or in this case, nearly nonexistent, misunderstandings of communication are frequent.

Tone has the ability to detract or enhance the message we aim to provide. In aiming to avoid our message becoming muddled, we must separate the substance from our style. Many ideas get dismissed or shut an audience down before the message is even delivered because of the tone of the speaker. We do not want to find ourselves in situations where people agree with our message but disagree with the tone. Cocky, dismissive, hostile, arrogant, or even boring tones are all enough to make any member on the receiving end apprehensive about providing their attention. The meaning of messages encompasses more than just the words spoken. For this reason, we must always be cognizant of our audience, of the inflection our voice is using, and of the severity of the situation or environment we find ourselves in.

We must act and speak in ways that provide no misinterpretation of our chosen tone, in ways where our message is clearly the main focus point and our tone only adds to our delivery. By minimizing the distance between our message and tone, we make the journey for our audience’s understanding that much easier. Understand tone to further understand human interaction.