This cartoon connects well with the first chapter of the book. In this chapter, authors introduced two models of communication – Linear Model and Transactional Model. In the Linear Model, communication directly flows from sender to receiver, but noise—anything that interferes with the message—can disrupt that process. In this cartoon, it showcases an office space, where co-workers/receivers misinterpreted the sender’s original message from ‘communication skills’ to ‘forgotten his pills’. This misinterpretation was created when confusion compounded by another participant interpreting the behavior as forgetfulness, showing how quickly a message can break down due to noise in the channel. The confusion of this cartoon further reinforces the element of the Linear Model and its idea of noise.

This can relate to my everyday life when it comes to text messaging my friends, family and coworkers. For example, if I type something autocorrect changes (like “skills” to “spills”), the person receiving it might misunderstand the entire message because of my mistake. In this situation, the noise would be the auto-correct feature of my phone’s software. Like the characters in the cartoon, the conversation can easily go off track if the receiver interprets the message differently than intended. This shows how even in simple communication, noise can significantly affect understanding.

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