The first activity, keeping eye contact, was much easier than the rest. I started by having a conversation with a good friend of mine. She was sitting on a chair and I was on a couch but they were close together. It was about the middle of our conversation when I decided to keep eye contact with her. I could tell within the first thirty seconds that she was a little uncomfortable and kept looking away for just a second, then looking back at me. I tired hard not to lose her eye contact but when she would look away I would still look at her eyes but couldn't keep contact because of how we were seated. I usually have good eye contact with this friend but I think she was a little nervous that I wouldn't take a break from looking at her.
The second activity was really hard for me. I am so used to keeping eye contact with everyone I speak with that it was difficult. A few minutes later I tried having no eye contact with this same friend, at first it was easy, I looked at the floor and at other people around the room while we were talking. As the conversation went on I wanted to look at her so bad because I felt so awkward that I started laughing after about a minute and a half. I didn't tell her why I was laughing I just kept the conversation going. She just stated laughing with me. After the two minutes were over I waited about 5 minutes and then told her what I was doing. She was surprised and said she kinda noticed but she wasn't really worried about our conversation because there was so much other stuff going on in the room.
The third activity was really awkward. I was talking to my brother on our deck and I kept inching closer and closer to him. He didn't notice at first but after I had been doing it for a little bit he put his hands in front of him and made a weird face. That was when I decided to tell him what I had been doing. He thought it was interesting and he was super confused why I had been getting closer to him because usually I stay far away. I thought this was a really interesting activity because it shows how people need their own space. The second you are in someones "bubble" they get really awkward and uncomfortable. I know if someone did that to me I would probably run away. I am so used to our society giving people personal space, when it does happen you know something is wrong.
How would you react if someone were to try any of these activities on you? Do you think you would notice?
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I think that I would react somewhat like your friend(s) and your brother. I think that it is very interesting how everyone knows the unwritten laws of nonverbal communication and when they are broken. I did an activity like this and received a similar reaction. I definitely think that I would notice the eye contact. I am a huge user of eye contact! However, anything besides that it might take me a little while to notice.
ReplyDeleteFor the first activity, I would definitely notice the extended eye contact. I also use eye contact a lot, but there's always those natural little breaks that keep things comfortable. If someone would not make eye contact with me during conversation I would become frustrated, thinking they weren't really interested. The last experiment would definitely end up with me cowering in a corner. I like my space!
ReplyDeleteAs I've made pretty clear in many of my blogs about personal space, I would definitely react to someone trying to back me into a corner. I think I would probably just run away or strike out in fear. I really value my personal space, not that I'm some kind of freak or anything, but I'm rather introverted.
ReplyDeleteI think it would depend on who was doing these experiments on me. If it was one of my best friends, I probably wouldn't think much of it. If it was a complete stranger, I probably would just think they were some weirdo. If it was someone I knew pretty well that didn't normally do that, yeah I would probably notice and it would probably bother me. I think eye contact is super important, but extended eye contact is really annoying.
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