Communication Skills and Age

It appears to me that communication skills increase with age. I work in a professional environment, a government office, and I am the youngest among my colleagues and it seems my verbal communications skills are slightly less developed than my older peers. I'm 23, most them are 30+.

If you notice, it's usually middle-aged guys who give the eloquent and enticing speeches, not college kids or teens. I'm hoping that I will naturally gain the desired level of speech skill when I reach 27 or so. I always thought that you learn all need to talk by 12, but I guess not.

So do you find that it is true that the older you get the better verbal skills you get?

For the record I don't talk weird, I sound like any college student would. (See my video rap battle if you don't believe me.)

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Communication (and especially public speaking) is a skill in itself. I don't think it necessarily gets better with age alone. It takes practice for sure and often conscious effort. Although I'm sure some people are more naturally gifted at it than others.

Also- need link to rap battle video :P

False.

People lose teeth/get coughs with age often.

At 5/9/2012 4:42:11 PM, OberHerr wrote:
False.

People lose teeth/get coughs with age often.

Wat?

At 5/9/2012 4:57:13 PM, GeoLaureate8 wrote:

At 5/9/2012 4:42:11 PM, OberHerr wrote:
False.

People lose teeth/get coughs with age often.

Wat?

You said communication skills increase with age.

Its a joke.

At 5/9/2012 4:21:08 PM, GeoLaureate8 wrote:
It appears to me that communication skills increase with age. I work in a professional environment, a government office, and I am the youngest among my colleagues and it seems my verbal communications skills are slightly less developed than my older peers. I'm 23, most them are 30+.

If you notice, it's usually middle-aged guys who give the eloquent and enticing speeches, not college kids or teens. I'm hoping that I will naturally gain the desired level of speech skill when I reach 27 or so. I always thought that you learn all need to talk by 12, but I guess not.

So do you find that it is true that the older you get the better verbal skills you get?

For the record I don't talk weird, I sound like any college student would. (See my video rap battle if you don't believe me.)

Yes. The older you get, the more you would have interacted with other people. You learn to manage your tones and your words to elicit the responses you want. You pick up on cues through experience that tell you whether what you said or how you said something is good or bad.

You learn how to slip people candy as you talk to them.

Definitely agree and have actually been noticing this as well. Our brain is always picking up new words and phrases and is constantly developing. The more we hear people speak and the more we speak ourselves, the more we develop different good verbal traits. I think it's similar with writing as well. If you read and write allot you become allot more articulate and eloquent because you're always trying to write well and thus will possess a larger verbal capacity.

If you merely do something repeatedly skills don't improve. But you try something and it doesn't work well, then try something else, you'll likely improve. I think you'll improve because you are interacting with people who are more adept and you'll learn what works and what does not.

I think if you worked with people on something that did not require higher communication skills, say on a factory production line, there wouldn't be much improvement. Maybe skills relating to day-to-day interactions would improve, but not skills related to communicating complicated concepts.

Here is an experiment. Assuming you have already learned how to drive a car pretty well, next time you drive try consciously to improve your skills. One skill is looking several cars ahead and anticipating what is going to happen. Another skill is always having an "escape" identified if someone cuts you off. My theory is that just trying to work at a higher level also helps. Even for old guys like me.

At 5/9/2012 6:44:28 PM, RoyLatham wrote:
If you merely do something repeatedly skills don't improve.

Perhaps you're thinking of a different context, but repeating something often does improve your skills. Not to the maximum level though.