What Are The Environmental Factors That Affect Communication?

There are several environmental factors that can enhance or detract from communication. Some of the barriers to effective communication include echoes, long distance barriers, noise, poor lighting, and visual noise.

Poor lighting takes away visual cues and body language that many people need, especially people who may be hard of hearing. Any visual displays cannot be seen well in poor lighting conditions taking even more away from the communications process. Noise is another environmental factor that adversely effects communication. The noise can be traffic noise outside an office or place of business which blends into what is called white noise, or the noise of an annoying co-worker talking on their cell phone to a family member. Noise is simply anything that can be heard that is distracting and takes attention away from the intended communications.

Long distance can detract from effective communications in that it takes longer for verbal communication to reach its target and sometimes visual cues and body language are taken out of the equation. Technology has improved phone service to the public over the past few decades where communication via voice is now reliable to anywhere in the world, but without visual clues and body language the communication process is not at an optimum.

Visual noise can refer to anything that is distracting in a visual manner such as traffic going by outside an office window or a fight between co-workers. Once a person becomes interested in something other than the person talking to them, the communication process stops.

The key to effective communications is to recognize and eliminate all or as much of these environmental factors that take away from the communications process. While there may be some factors that you cannot control, the fact is there are many of them you can and should eliminate.

The environment can be a barrier to effective communication. Some of the factors that affect communication are:
--> Poor Lighting
--> visual noise
--> Noise
--> Distance
--> Echo
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The environment that you communicate in has a huge effect on communication.  That is what is called  physical barriers.  Those are usually factors that you have no control over and examples are:  A crackling noise on the telephone (making it difficult to hear),  Poor reception on a TV screen, being cut off during a phone call, traffic noise caused by cars, trains, aeroplanes or helicopters.  It may also be that the sender of the message is not sure how to use the medium for communication.  They may want to send an email, but do not know how to.  The environment where the communication takes place could also be uncomfortable, in other word it could be too hot, too cold, too crowded or the chairs may be uncomfortable.

There are many environmental factors which can affect communication. The three main categories of these environmental factors include Visual factors, Auditory factors and Individual factors. These factors act as barriers to effective communication. Visual factors include lightening, distractions, distance, talker’s face, body language, viewing angle and vision. For example, poor lightening conditions can impact the communication process.

Secondly, there are auditory factors which include noise, distance and echo. For example, noises like air conditioners, fans and other such noisy products can distort communication process. Third category is Individual factors which include fatigue, attitude, inadequate ventilation, preparation and situation. For example, attitude can directly impact the success or failure of the communication.

Environment on the expression of human emotion, conflict, independence, success, organization and so forth will have an impact, thereby affecting the person's communication.

It depends on what kind of communication and what kind of environment. Like cell phones will have trouble working in really hilly or mountainous areas. That's why when you look at a cell coverage map they all lack coverage in Montana. Satellite communication can be disrupted by rain or snow.

Noise is anything that disrupts the
effective flow of information within an organization. This disruption can occur
in several ways, and thus noise as a communication barrier can broadly be
summed up into semantic noise, physical
noise and psychological noise.

Semantic noise:Is the type of noise that
occurs due to the receiver not being able to fully comprehend or capture the
meaning intended by the sender of the message. This type of noise could occur when
an employee uses jargon, slang, or even poor hand writing to convey a message
to a co-worker. In this case the meaning of the message is unclear and thus
hinders effective communication.

Physical noise: This is any environmental or external noise that interferes with either
the technical transmission of the signal or with the message itself. An example
of this noise would be for instance, poor call quality when you are in the
middle of a conference call or hearing co-workers chatting loudly in the next
office when you are about to make an important presentation.  A technical breakdown such as the crashing of
a computer can also interfere with the flow of communication and disrupt the
entire communication process.

Physiological noise: Refers to the type of noise that occurs due to an individual's prejudice,
personal bias or even factors such as hunger, headaches or fatigue.  When a meeting drags on for a long period of
time, employees may start experiencing hunger pangs or may develop headaches. As
a result, their attention span gets disrupted and they fail to decode the
message that is being communicated to them.

Time and Distance areboth
environmental factors thatplay a
fundamental role when it comes to effective communication. For instance,
Nairobi is 7 hours ahead of Washington D.C. Therefore, if I need urgent data
from a co-worker who has traveled to Washington D.C for a workshop, I would
need to choose an appropriate time to communicate to him/her. Failure to which,
I risk sending the message when he/she is asleep.  Furthermore, the urgency of the situation
would also determine the channel that I would select to communicate the message.
Choosing a time-consuming or ineffective channel of communication could delay the
entire communication process.

Negative organizational climate is an environmental factor that can greatly hinder
effective communication within organizations. For example, when the management
constantly demonstrates a negative attitude towards proposals made by employees,
this attitude could discourage the employees from sharing information that
could improve the organization's performance.

Space is an important environmental
factor that affects communication particularly in the case of oral
communication. The distance between a sender and receiver can either be
intimate, personal, official or public. When communicating with a co-worker it
is important to respect their personal space and maintain an official distance
of four to five feet. When space is not put into consideration, it often acts
as a communication barrier.  Violating a
co-worker's personal space could result in an awkward and extremely embarrassing
confrontation.

Noise is anything that disrupts the
effective flow of information within an organization. This disruption can occur
in several ways, and thus noise as a communication barrier can broadly be
summed up into semantic noise, physical
noise and psychological noise.

Semantic noise:Is the type of noise that
occurs due to the receiver not being able to fully comprehend or capture the
meaning intended by the sender of the message. This type of noise could occur when
an employee uses jargon, slang, or even poor hand writing to convey a message
to a co-worker. In this case the meaning of the message is unclear and thus
hinders effective communication.

Physical noise: This is any environmental or external noise that interferes with either
the technical transmission of the signal or with the message itself. An example
of this noise would be for instance, poor call quality when you are in the
middle of a conference call or hearing co-workers chatting loudly in the next
office when you are about to make an important presentation.  A technical breakdown such as the crashing of
a computer can also interfere with the flow of communication and disrupt the
entire communication process.

Physiological noise: Refers to the type of noise that occurs due to an individual's prejudice,
personal bias or even factors such as hunger, headaches or fatigue.  When a meeting drags on for a long period of
time, employees may start experiencing hunger pangs or may develop headaches. As
a result, their attention span gets disrupted and they fail to decode the
message that is being communicated to them.

Time and Distance are both
environmental factors that play a
fundamental role when it comes to effective communication. For instance, some Africa countries is 7 hours ahead of Washington D.C. Therefore, if I need urgent data
from a co-worker who has traveled to Washington D.C for a workshop, I would
need to choose an appropriate time to communicate to him/her. Failure to which,
I risk sending the message when he/she is asleep.  Furthermore, the urgency of the situation
would also determine the channel that I would select to communicate the message.
Choosing a time-consuming or ineffective channel of communication could delay the
entire communication process.

Negative organizational climate is an environmental factor that can greatly hinder
effective communication within organizations. For example, when the management
constantly demonstrates a negative attitude towards proposals made by employees,
this attitude could discourage the employees from sharing information that
could improve the organization's performance.

Space is an important environmental
factor that affects communication particularly in the case of oral
communication. The distance between a sender and receiver can either be
intimate, personal, official or public. When communicating with a co-worker it
is important to respect their personal space and maintain an official distance
of four to five feet. When space is not put into consideration, it often acts
as a communication barrier.  Violating a
co-worker's personal space could result in an awkward and extremely embarrassing
confrontation.

It could be like fog and road signs are not visible, magnatic fields affect electronic devices which are used for communication.