Communication vs. chatter

I chose for my final 5:45 workshop the theme of Social Networking: Opportunity or Dependency and found myself once again surrounded by twenty-somethings. The Brother who led was delightful and engaging and made so many thoughtful points and with absolutely no judgement that I, and the young people, were utterly enthralled. He even had a hand-out! On it were several points that warrant reposting:

“93% of communication is non-verbal.”

“There is a human limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships— on the Dunbar scale, it’s 150.”

“If everything is important, nothing is important.”

At this point he invited everyone to turn on their phones and leave them on for the rest of the class. He then called up two volunteers and handed each of them badminton racquets and a birdy. He started by positioning them very far away, say, thirty feet, and invited…