FINANCIAL LIFE PLANNING

Mitch Anthony

Technology has made it easier for us to talk past each other . That ’ s not good for advisors who need to listen .

EVERAL YEARS AGO MY 12-YEAR-OLD NIECE HAD A PHONE CONversation with her grandmother . After she hung up , she turned to her mother and said , “ That was weird . I said something to Grandma , and she listened . Then she said something , and I listened . And we just went back and forth like that .”

Her mother responded with , “ Dear , what you had was a conversation !”

“ It was really different ,” she replied .

To this young girl , the back and forth of conversational exchange and the tuned-in listening and responding was perceived as a foreign experience . This anecdote gives us reason to pause and question whether the world around us is evolving or devolving in communication . We must also question just how much we are being shaped and influenced by our communication forms . Marshall McLuhan , the leading prophet of the electronic age , stated that “ the medium is the message .” My question is , “ How deeply has the medium molded the messenger ?” Are we becoming anatomical extensions of the technologies we employ to keep in touch ? Are we beginning to behave just like these technologies ?

Furthermore , are these modes of communication helping us to evolve into more effective communicators or hastening our devolvement into nothing more than “ messengers ” who send and “ contacts ” who receive ?

Culturally and individually , we would do well to examine whether we are becoming more impatient in our communication with others . Are we becoming more self-centered , more clipped , bottom-line oriented , demanding

Culturally and individually , we would do well to examine whether we are becoming more impatient in our communication with others . and / or more dismissive in our communication ? What role do the devices and technologies we use play in shaping our communication behaviors and attitudes ?

Ask yourself if the modern mediums for communicating are helping you become a more patient communicator , a more understanding listener , or a more thoughtful responder . One clear impact of technologies upon our behavior is that they are eroding our ability as conversationalists and often neutralizing our desire to engage in conversation .

It ’ s funny to note that almost 200 years ago , Henry David Thoreau was lamenting the same thing — tech ’ s influence on communication — after telegraph wires spread across the countryside . Because people had to pay for each word , he felt they would necessarily reduce their communication to the bottom line . They could literally measure their words with money . He felt the art of conversation and human connectivity were in peril and that people would soon fall into a pattern of directing messages at one another instead of exchanging ideas that struck deeper chords .

In our day , our problem is more about the economies of time than of money . We have become impatient communicators with a stopwatch instead of a clock . We feel a perpetual and driving need to jump to conclusions about our problems without navigating the causes and effects . The technologies available to us are feeding our general inclination toward impa-

JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2024 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 21