You have a lot of options available to you when you need to communicate. You can text, call, meet face-to-face, write on a Facebook wall, tweet, or email. All of these are legitimate forms of communication, but they aren’t equal. A text is not equal to a phone call. An email isn’t the same thing as a hand-written note. A blog is not the same as a conversation.

Just as there are different forms of communication, there are also different levels of communication. The trick is to match the message with the medium.

As a culture, we don’t know how to do this. Back in the day, if you wanted to talk with someone you had to see them and talk face-to-face. After that, you could meet or send them a letter. Soon, you could meet, send a letter, or talk on the phone. Then came email. Now you could “write a letter” and the recipient would get it immediately. This opened up a whole world of possibilities. People began communicating with groups of people from all over the world in one message (and your grandparents started sending you forwards). We became addicted to communication (not necessarily a bad thing) and so new forms of communication were born – the social networks.

In the whirlwind of communication options we lost the appropriate form of communication. We have forgotten how to match the message with the medium.

So you have couples fighting over text messages or breaking up on Facebook. People are leaving churches over email, making a phone call to say, “I’m going to be late,” and tweeting confessions. This is what I call “mismatched communication.” It’s what happens when the message you need to communicate doesn’t match the form of communication you are using. Mismatched communication is the breeding ground for misunderstanding.

Since we are tuned in to the proper form of communication for our message we are living in a wake of misunderstanding, conflict, and poor communication. It’s time for all that to end!

Wanna to break up? Meet face-to-face.

Want to say thank you? Send a hand-written note.

Need to share information? Send an email.

Got something quick to say? Send a text.

Wanna share some inspiration? Post on your wall or send a tweet.

But don’t engage in a conflict through texts! Don’t break up by changing your “status.” Don’t text me back when I’ve called you (you should match the medium that initiated the conversation; if I called you I have something appropriate for a call). Don’t ask how that wart is healing on my Facebook wall.

Match the message and the medium.