Communication can be challenging! In our increasingly digital world, we’ve adapted to more communication online than in person. In the last year, we’ve also faced new barriers to in-person communication: face masks.
- Think about the last year and a half of people wearing face masks. How has wearing a mask affected your communication with others? (Accept all reasonable answers.)
- Have masks made it harder to distinguish other people’s words, facial features, or emotions? If so, how? (Accept all reasonable answers.)
Regardless of our individual feelings about face masks, we can agree that they can sometimes make it harder to recognize the people underneath. In addition to that, face masks can affect our communication—both verbal and nonverbal—with others.
Read the following information from a BBC article about how face masks affect our communication: “How face masks affect our communication”
“When it comes to studying faces, the eyes and mouth are the most informative regions because they tend to be the most expressive. We subconsciously analyze their combined movements to figure out what someone is trying to tell us. Even so, each feature alone can communicate certain emotions especially well. The mouth region, in particular, is good for expressing feelings of happiness. Concealing this area can be problematic when wanting to come across as approachable and friendly…
Having a mask on also can sometimes feel like there is a physical barrier between you and the person you’re communicating with. That’s especially true if you’re trying to have a deep, meaningful conversation with someone rather than a fleeting interaction at the grocery store, says sociologist Harris Ali from York University.”
- How have face masks felt like a barrier to your communication and relationships? (Accept all reasonable answers.)
Although the face masks people have been wearing in the last year and a half have been to stop the spread of disease, “hiding behind a mask” is also a metaphor for when people hide parts of themselves or pretend to be something they’re not in order to fit in.
It can be a struggle to communicate and feel a sense of belonging with others when it feels like there are barriers in place. However, feeling alone isn’t how God intended life to be for Christians! Because of the big thing we have in common—Jesus—we shouldn’t have to hide the little things that make us different from each other. We should accept each other’s differences, rather than staying away from people who seem “weird” to us.
If you’re a Christian, God’s plan is for you to have a place to fit in—a place where you can live the way He made you to be in community with others. He also wants you to make a place for others to belong. Let’s see what Paul wrote about Christian unity in his letter to the Ephesians.
