I recorded an episode of “How I Met Your Mother”, my
son watches it but I have never sat down to see what it is about. With the
sound off I observed that this was a group of friends, they laugh, hug and meet
at a local restaurant. They seem happy with each other and seem to like each
other’s company. They seemed to be very comfortable and relaxed talking to each
other. There seemed to be many relationships among this group of friends but I
could not tell who was with who except for one couple that was always holding
hands and sitting together.
With the sound on I was not surprised to find out
that I was right about the one couple, but I thought maybe there was another on
but it turns out that they are just friends. There conversations were for the
most part pleasant but the one character Barney seems to be the trouble maker.
If I had been watching a show that I knew well I do
believe that my assumptions would have been more on target because I would have
known who was with who and about their relationships.
I have never watched this show either. This exercise was so interesting and eye opening. I never realized the impact that non-verbal communication has on our interpretation of what is taking place. This is something I would love to do with my staff as an understanding of how parents interpret our actions through windows when they do not have the benefit of sound.
ReplyDeleteI have seen bits and pieces of this show. If I had ever watched it with the sound off I believe I would have come to the same conclusions as you about it. I think body language and expression can reveal feeling and true intent almost better than spoken words sometimes. I think it is much harder to hide our body language than to blatantly lie with words. Just wait till we are required to webcam our boss when we are not feeling well instead of a phone call. I bet attendance goes up...or at least the truth about why we are not coming in!
ReplyDeleteI have heard of this show but have never watched a episode. As we had to pick up on what was going through non-verbal cues when working with our families we have to do some of the same things to help better understand the point they are trying to get across.
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