What are communication breakdowns?

A communication breakdown is when people don’t understand each other because the message got mixed up somewhere along the way.

Imagine you're playing a game of telephone with your friends. You whisper a secret to the first person, and they pass it on to the next, and so on until the last person says it out loud. Sometimes, the final message is completely different from the original, that’s a communication breakdown!

Like a Misheard Song

Think about singing a song with your friends. If one person sings the wrong note, the next person might hear something totally different. Soon, everyone is singing a whole new song! That's just like how messages can get changed when people don’t listen carefully or misunderstand what they're being told.

When You Don't Speak the Same Language

Sometimes, it’s not about getting confused, it’s about speaking different languages. If you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know your words, they might be totally lost! It's like trying to explain a cartoon to someone who only knows the words from their favorite book.

Communication breakdowns happen all the time, but with practice, we can fix them and understand each other better!

Take the quiz →

Examples

  1. A child says 'I want a dog,' but actually means 'I want a cat.'
  2. Two friends argue about what time they're meeting because one said '7:00' and the other thought it was '7:00 PM.'
  3. A parent tells their kid to clean their room, but the kid only cleans their bed.

Ask a question

See also

Discussion

Recent activity