The power of communication. Last year we had a family emergency, I live in London and most of my family live in New Zealand. I received a phone call from my Mum in the early hours of the morning and knew instantly something was wrong.
As much as 93% of communication is non-verbal - source
After the shock, I wanted to reach out to some of my family, to feel more connected. I tried to contact my brother, who lives in New Zealand, but with no luck, I left him several messages over a few days and no response. So I messaged his girlfriend, who told me to try Facebook Messenger, he quite liked that instant messaging platform, so I tried again.
Me and my brother, circa 1986
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Still no response
I was starting to get mad. What if something happened to our parents and I needed to get hold of him? I was visiting New Zealand in one months time and decided to send him a message every day until then. So to prove a point about family communication, I started messaging my brother on a daily basis...
These messages included photographs of his nephews, statements, what I was doing, even my girlfirends got in on the act.
And so the messages went on for one month, and still nothing.
Even when we arrived in New Zealand I still didn't hear from him. But thanks to Facebook messaging and the little magic Blue Tick, I could see he had read the messages, he just wasn't replying! Typical, not only was I being stubborn so was my brother. But success, I did get one message back, after sending my brother, which would have been the 31st message in a row, I finally got a reply,
"Hey, that's my old race track".
I guess that's better than nothing!
