Essay: Digital Communication vs. Face-to-Face Interaction in Business

This essay examines the evolving landscape of communication in modern industrial settings, focusing on the comparison and contrast between electronic (digital) and face-to-face communication methods. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of each, considering factors such as efficiency, accessibility, diversity, and the human element. The essay discusses the role of digital communication tools like emails, WhatsApp, and video conferencing in facilitating remote work, customer service, and distance learning. It also addresses potential drawbacks, including the lack of personal touch, privacy concerns, and the need for training. The author argues that while digital communication offers significant benefits in terms of speed and reach, face-to-face interaction remains crucial for building relationships and fostering emotional connection. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of adapting communication strategies to meet the diverse needs of modern businesses and individuals.

Running head: ADVANCED COMPOSITION
Advanced Composition
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2ADVANCED COMPOSITION
Communication is the key to success in the modern industrial setup. This is because as
competition is rapidly increasing, there are changes in the needs and demands of the customers
all around the world. To keep pace with the same, all the organizations have to work very hard so
that they can survive in this era of rapid competition. However, sound communication must be
developed among all the different departments of an organization o that there are no hindrances
in the decision-making system.There are two main types of communication that are electronic or
digital communication. There is a huge debate that is put forward by many people based on
different benefits or the drawbacks that are associated with the two. Electronic communication
mediums like twitter, instant chat messages, and others are convenient for the modern-day
communication system as it passes on the message in an error-free and time optimizing manner.
As per the opinion of Choo et al. (2018), the digital communication system must be
initiated in all the business organizations as this helps in speeding up the rate of the operations.
In other words, working with remote employees has become the modern-day aspects of business
enterprises. To work with the entire dynamic workforce it is the urgent need of the business
organizations to work with employees from across different places of the world. This enables
them to get the best expertise and also modern-day business ideas. However remote employees
have to stay in a constant connection with the rest of their team and the managers who are
working from the main office. In such cases, communication is based on modern digital or the
electronic communication system. The different tools that are used during such time are emails,
WhatsApp groups, virtual team rooms, and others. These are the applications that help the
employees working from different places to cooperate and also be able to work collaboratively.
The electronic or the digital communication mediums are highly useful as they help in
transferring the messages from the source to the recipients in a very fast and efficient manner.

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Peters et al. (2017) have also stated in a similar context that in case of the electronic or the digital
communication mediums the employees can communicate without any loss or any kind of
interruptions in the flow. Even if the employees cannot meet together they can always be a part
of the meeting and keep on sharing their innovative business ideas.
Diversity is another great benefit of strengthening electronic communication mediums.
This is mainly because in the modern-day scenario there have been many transitions in the needs
and demands of the customers (Rice et al., 2017). Customers all around the world are after some
new and innovative products. To satisfy their needs, the companies have to ensure that they are
hiring the best experts from different teams and are using their innovative ideas for improving
their production (Doorley et al., 2020). The modern electronic communication mediums have
made it possible. Zoom Duo is also one of the most useful modern communication systems that
help in connecting many different participants from different parts of the world to work together
at the same time. For example, a company working in Australia will be able to collaborate with
all the other employees who are working from other places like Japan, China, India, and many
others.
However, Vidal, Kirchmaier, and Battiston (2017) have argued that one of the major issues that
one might face in the case of the digital or the online electronic communication system is the
uncertainty of the internet system. Internet systems might often get slow or might be out of
service for some severe issues. However, this will surely hamper the flow of information and the
entire work will be badly affected.
Jewitt et al 2019) has suggested that in the case of digital communication there is a lack
of personal touch or human interaction in the communication. It must be noted in this context

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that in case of the digital communication system the information is either sent in form of a
nonverbal communication system that is written messages via emails, WhatsApp, or instant chat
messages or it is verbally done in case of the video calling or other such meeting sessions. There
is a lack of emotional touch or the true human interaction that would be possible in case of a
direct face to face reaction. However, Soeiro, Royo, and Uras (2017) think that the personal
element is absent in case of the communication that is done via the text messages or other such
activities (Choo, H. N., Latiff, N. A. A., Varahram, P., & Ali, B. M. (2018, April). This is
because in case of a teleconferencing session or a phone call or text, messaging the recipients or
the receivers are not able to get the warm interpersonal touch and neither they can understand the
nonverbal cues. This is only present in case of the direct face to the face communication system.
In the case of direct face to face communication, people can interact with one another and
engage with each other surrounded by real-life situations. Relationship building will not be
available in the case of the digital communication system. This is because people will not be able
to understand the actual implied meaning of the written messages and can also misinterpret the
same.
Sudhakar, Kattepogu and David, (2017) have argued in a similar context saying that
there are many up gradations and improvements being done in the case of the digital or the
electronic communication system. This is because the digital communication systems also have
emoticons and the other stickers that are nowadays being used to show the different reactions. In
other words, these will always help n adding a touch of personalization or the touch of the
interaction among the senders and the receivers as well.
Digital or electronic communication mediums are finding their application in different levels of
industrial operations. One among them is customer interactions (Soeiro, Royo & Uras, 2017).

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Post-sale services like customer services are being developed a lot through modern-day digital or
communication systems (Underwood & Ehrenreich, 2017). This is because a large number of
buyers feel comfortable buying their products online as they do not always have the time to shop
from the brick and mortar stores within their busy schedule. After completing their shopping
customers always look for convenient customer service as well. In the modern-day scenario, all
the companies are trying their best to stay connected with customers via electronic
communication mediums like Facebook pages, websites of the companies, WhatsApp chat
systems, emails, customer forums, and many others. For an instance, In all the big retail outlets,
like Aldi, Walmart and others are digitalizing their communication system so that they can stay
connected to their customers and also resolve all their queries within a short period. Electronic
communication mediums have helped the customer care executives to stay available for their
customers on a 24*7 hour basis so that that they are always able to listen to all the queries of
their customers and solve them in a very efficient and also time optimizing manner (Kraume,
Voormanns & Zhong, 2019).
Srivastava (2019) has argued that there is a lack of privacy in the case of digital or
electronic communication mediums. Chances of hacking cannot be fully eliminated and there is
always the chance of some data being lost due to hacking in case of those companies that store
and share all their data in form of digital platforms. Apart from this, some employees might also
suffer from boredom if they are working from home with the help of digital communication
mediums. In such cases, they might also take the undue advantage of the company resources and
use it for their usage in the office hours or waste the resources as well. To avoid all these
scenarios many people support the face to the face communication system. They think that in the

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case of a face to face conversation the leaders can reach out to all the employees or their team
members in a proper manner and also interact with them.
Electronic or digital communication systems have also helped a lot in the field of distance
learning. This is mainly because of the reason that many students are not able to attain their
college every single day. Many students are involved in part-time jobs due to their family
constraints or because they want to work and study at the same time (Coughlin, 2018). The
digital platforms or electronic communication mediums have been very helpful as they have
helped in understanding these students and developed the concept of distance learning.
Thousands of students can attain the classes and also get to interact with their classmates or with
the teachers via different online tools. Apart from the students the working professionals who
want to pursue some other additional courses can opt for the distance learning tools and can work
and study simultaneously (Wenzler & Schmidthaler, 2019). This is very useful for working
professionals to be able to balance their work and also their educational or their academic
courses properly. On the other hand, the industries that want to develop any employee training
and development sessions are also capable of developing some on job training systems that will;
be helping them to provide a balanced schedule to their working professionals. Employees will
work and also learn at the same time. This will help them to balance their daily routine properly
and also gain some additional degrees.
However, it is also true that employees who suffer from the lack of motivation might look
forward to some direct or face to face conversation with their bosses. It must be noted in this
context that it is not always possible for them the leaders of any big companies to make the time
of communicating with all the employees individually. As there are many different kinds of
works that have to be supervised by the managers or the bosses, they might not be able to make

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time for a personal meeting session (Hill, Offermann & Thomas, 2019). In such cases, they will
have to take up the meetings as per their time via the online digital platforms or the electronic
communication mediums. However, some employees might have problems in understanding the
mechanisms of digital communication sessions.
Therefore the managers must ensure that proper training and development sessions are
also being developed to train the workforce and teach them how to handle the electronic
communication systems in a proper way.There must be a well-developed system of feedback
sessions at the end of each electronic or digital communication. This will enable managers to can
know about the issues and solutions to take the right strategies to solve the same in the future.

8ADVANCED COMPOSITION
References
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of memory polynomial with binomial reduction in digital pre-distortion for wireless
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Industrial Electronics (ISCAIE) (pp. 291-296). IEEE.
Coughlin, J. F. (2018). Digital Breadcrumbs: A Lack of Data Privacy and What People Are
Doing About It.
Doorley, J., Volgenau, K., Kelso, K., Kashdan, T. B., & Shackman, A. J. (2020). Social anxiety
is associated with similar emotional impairments during digital and face-to-face
communication in daily life.
Hellmann, A., Ang, L., & Sood, S. (2020). Towards a conceptual framework for analyzing
impression management during face-to-face communication. Journal of Behavioral and
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Hill, N. S., Offermann, L. R., & Thomas, K. (2019). Mitigating the detrimental impact of
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Jewitt, C., Leder Mackley, K., & Price, S. (2019). Digital touch for remote personal
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Kraume, K., Voormanns, K., & Zhong, J. (2019). How a Global Customer Service Leader is
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DEMONSTRATION TO EVALUATE AND USE DIGITAL TOOLS IN
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Vidal, J. B. I., Kirchmaier, T., & Battiston, D. (2017). Is Distance Dead? Face-to-Face
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