Day 275 of adhering to the Stay-at-Home orders—you know, when we were told we had to shelter
in place as a response to the Coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19, Covid, or the
virus that caused a pandemic.
No, it’s really only Day 32 since our Sacramento County Public Health Officer issued Stay-at-Home
orders, and Day 31 since California made it mandatory for the entire state.
It only feels like Day 275.
So, me?
I’m Patricia Harris-Jenkinson, or Professor PJ—a Communication professor at both Sacramento
City College and Sac State.
And I can’t help but notice the effect this mandatory isolation is having on our nonverbal
communication.
I’ve talked with colleagues and students and this video is the result, which I’m
calling, “Musings of Communication Scholars on the
effects of COVID-19 on Nonverbal Communication.”
Before we get to it, understand that this video is just that… musings.
While there is sure to be formal research conducted on this subject—and the duration
of the stay-at-home orders will be an important consideration—these are mostly anecdotal
observations and vague predictions of the impact on our future use of nonverbal codes.
And, let’s give this some context, using the reductionist theory of technological determinism.
The underlying concept is that our technology determines how our social structure and cultural
values develop.
Canadian philosopher, Marshall McLuhan, related this concept to media theory (you may recognize
McLuhan’s name from his oft-repeated phrase, “The medium is the message”).
For our purposes, let’s assume that the technology determining how we use nonverbal
communication is instead the lack of technology related to the coronavirus: no testing or
cures—at least not at the present time.
You’re probably aware that nonverbal messages are ambiguous, culturally bound, continuous,
and that we learn how to interpret them.
And you also likely know the nonverbal codes of objectics, proxemics, chronemics, vocalics,
kinesics, oculesics, and haptics, and maybe even olfactics, and gustorics.
(And if you don’t, you’ll almost certainly learn them along the way.)
We’ll start with the most obvious: Proxemics, which relates to how we use space in our communication.
Social distancing is all about proxemics.
We’ve been told to maintain at least 6 feet between us and others—regardless of who
they are: friends, family members, coworkers—which flies in the face of Edward T. Hall’s Proxemics
research when personal space was defined as between 18 inches and 4 feet.
I know that, when I’m out walking, I’ll move to the middle of the street or cross
it if I see someone else walking.
In the past, I’d be concerned that they might interpret my distancing as a judgment
against them.
Now, however, even seeing photographs of people or presidential news conferences where everyone
is standing close together makes me uncomfortable.
Another nonverbal code that has been significantly impacted by the coronavirus is haptics:
Ah… touch, which, for the most part, is prohibited.
Just pictures of handshakes now make me cringe.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of President Trump’s “go-to representatives” for all things
health-related, somewhat jokingly said, “We may never shake hands again.”
While you may disagree, perhaps the contexts in which we shake hands will change.
Instead, we may mix it up with something else, like a fist bump, smile and wave, or nod.
In Wuhan, China, they’ve borrowed the footshake from dance competitions—a version of which
you can see in this quick video featured on the March 20th Good Morning America show where
the Oregon Health & Science University medical residents demonstrated their fancy footwork.
And, what about sex?—definitely haptics.
On March 27, the New York Department of Public Health recommended that we love ourselves
rather than share our love with others—not in those exact words, but you get the point.
Hmm…
I wonder how long that will last?
As humans, we thrive on human touch—and we miss it, sparking the sentiment expressed
by Crazy World: “Once this is all over with, I’m hugging everybody.
Get ready for long, awkward hugs.
I’m gonna make it weird.”
And, what we have, wear, and our physical appearance, objectics, is also affected by
the coronavirus, the most obvious of which is our new fashion accessory, the mask.
(Mine communicates my family’s love of Disney!)
And, kudos to Eastern Kentucky University senior, Ashley Lawrence, who is among a few
who designed masks for the deaf and hard of hearing community to allow lip reading.
Beyond the mask, consider what we are wearing these days.
If we don’t leave our homes, footwear becomes optional or, at least, limited.
(There’s absolutely no need for high heels these days!)
There are countless jokes about how, with video conferences, people opt out of wearing
pants.
And, can we talk hair color for a moment?
There’s a meme going around about how, in eight weeks, 88% of blondes will disappear
from the earth.
Now, I’m not blonde, but this brunette may turn into a silver fox after this is over,
even if my husband does think that going to my hairdresser is an essential service.
And, remember artifacts?
The “things”—objects--we have in our physical environment which, for many of us,
now includes lots of rolls of toilet paper—or not.
As we do more video conferencing, we disclose more about ourselves with our backgrounds—real
or virtual.
To paraphrase a CBS Sunday Morning story, we are paying attention to other people’s
living spaces—and that may emphasize class differences.
So, many of us are turning to virtual backgrounds, which also reveal a lot about ourselves: Anyone
else have a Hogwarts background?
While these three, proxemics, haptics, and objectics (or artifacts and physical appearance)
are the most obvious codes affected by the coronavirus, you can see the impact on kinesics,
or body movement, as well.
Kinesics includes gestures, posture, and facial expressions—wait, how can we see facial
expressions if a mask conceals the lower half of the face?
Yes, we can see some movement when someone smiles widely, but you’ll likely see that
in the eye muscles as well.
This is how we often determine if a smile is real or just polite—or even, fake: we
look at your eyes.
The smile that reaches your eyes making the corners wrinkle up with crow’s feet, a Duchenne
smile, is considered to be among the most influential of human expressions, one that
many of us consider to be the most authentic indicator of happiness.
Little Wren, my niece’s daughter, demonstrates the Duchenne smile perfectly in this PSA her
mom sent to my family.
And, the eyebrows—don’t forget them.
Raised eyebrows can communicate skepticism or disapproval, agreement, and even flirtatiousness—it
all depends on how those eyebrows are raised.
And, if you can’t see my mouth, I may resort to using gestures more often, like a double
thumbs up to show agreement.
Consider how important those gestures are during a Zoom meeting where everyone is muted;
a vigorous head nod to indicate agreement or someone pointing to their ears to communicate
that your mic is muted.
A subcategory of kinesics, oculesics, focuses specifically on eye movement—which, again,
is important.
As an example, where you look becomes even more critical when you are on a video conference:
do you look at the screen, your webcam image, or the webcam itself?
We’ll be able to speed through next three to four nonverbal codes:
Vocalics—how we use our voice—may also become more important.
Like the blind or deaf who’s other senses become stronger to compensate for a lack of
one, we may become more sophisticated at interpreting emotion based on someone’s vocal quality.
And, of course, we do need to be heard and understood in a Zoom session.
Chronemics relates to time which, not only are we spending differently, we are losing
track of (Day 275?).
Many of us have to resort to actually “putting things on our calendar” to make sure we
are online at a particular time.
One of my friends posted this observation, “The terms ‘Breakfast,’ ‘Lunch,’
and ‘Dinner’ have lost all meaning in my household.
Now, whenever I make a meal, I just announce it’s ‘Food Time.’
I feel like there should be new names for meals in the apocalypse.”
Olfactics relates to the use of smell and Gustorics, taste.
I wonder how many of us may not be showering as often—or showering more frequently?
And, might sales of perfume and cologne slump—after all, why should we worry about how we smell
if it’s just us.
And, I sincerely hope that we still care about dental hygiene.
While we may look forward to being able to “get back to normal” so we can hug everyone
to distraction, many predict that we will never return to the way things used to be.
If we accept the premise of technological determinism, how we use and interpret nonverbals
will change as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic—especially if, as some predict, the virus will return
and potentially mutate.
My sincere thanks go to all of my colleagues, and to my Spring 2020 Interpersonal Communication
class who allowed me to devote an entire Zoom class session to this topic.