Social Norms In Modern Communication

A social norm is an expected human reaction towards certain events, scenarios or any situations that are being practiced and/or accepted in society. It is a set of unwritten rules that we should follow in a particular group or culture. According to the book of Introduction to Sociology, a norm is an accepted way of doing things where there is an involvement of our society.

The social norm experiment we selected for this breaching assignment is the “answer the phone and wait for the other person to speak first” because we live in a modern world where phones are a necessity for all of us to communicate easily rather than talking face to face as we do not have time to meet or discuss things in person. This experiment involves, each member of the group answering at least 10 calls and recording the results of each phone call.

It is a social norm for several reasons. Firstly, most people communicate through the use of cell phones. Secondly, we all have a set of unwritten rules and what we call “phone etiquette” when receiving or answering a phone call. We also have different tips that help us understand rules to phone etiquette, such as “5 rules to answer the phone properly” or “8 telephone etiquette tips” that we can see all over the internet. These set of rules or tips help reinforce what is acceptable or unacceptable codes of conducts to follow with respect to communication.

To begin this experiment, we would record every call we receive so it would allow us to analyze the reactions of each person thoroughly. When the call is received, we will answer the call, then pause without saying a word and have the other person break the silence. After the person begins talking, we would continue the conversation normally to hear how they react. Since this experiment is over the phone, we would be able to conduct it anywhere and anytime we get a phone call. However, in order to be able to record the data (reaction/response) I would only conduct the experiment when we are capable of recording the phone call or take notes while speaking. So, in that case I would conduct the experiment while at home or at a place where I would be sitting down without many distractions around.

We intend to conduct this experiment at least 10 times to obtain a proper collection of responses/data for this experiment to be analyzed and studied to reach a conclusion. If by the 10th call we do not have sufficient responses to analyze, we will conduct the experiment a few more times until I am satisfied with the results and can study them to reach a proper understanding of the behaviour. We would try to record calls so that we can study the behaviour of the other person after the end of call and take notes. The reason for this is because we want to be focused on the experiment so that we are able to obtain accurate results.

This is a good way to collect data because it doesn’t hinder the accuracy of the results, since taking notes while speaking on the phone may not allow us to focus completely on the conversation at hand and may cause a lot of breaks and pauses. So, recording the call would allow us to be as real as possible and get better results.

Greeting with a hello after taking a call is a customary and common practice. This practice has been around nearly as long as the telephone itself. There is an expectation that the person picking up the call always answers with a greeting first. Because of this cultural practice, we believe that most people’s initial reaction would be to expect the person picking up the call to answer first. During the experiment, we predict the reaction to be that if the caller does not hear the other person speak first, he or she will break the silence, or they may react with an awkward pause and expect the other person to speak first. Others might get confused and think that their call did not go through if the awkward pause lingers.

Variables such as age may play a role in phone etiquette and how individuals respond to the experiment. For example, based on the perception that the millennial generation lack respect and patience compared to previous generations, we can assume that older people might take the time to stay on the line longer and wait for a reaction or response, whereas younger individuals who may be accustomed to immediate feedback will hang up if they do not hear anything right away. Also, in this day of modern technology, millennials prefer to communicate primarily through texting. It’s the generation that grew up with instant messaging, texting and email, therefore it might be a challenge to receive enough calls to conduct the experiment as thoroughly.