How to win friends and influence people critique

How to Win Friends and Influence People (Essentials of Engagement Discussion) Background: In the first part of the book, there is focus placed on three key areas, that can really be summed up by avoiding outward criticism/condemnation/complaining, affirming the good in others, and connecting to core desires. In Chapter 2, Carnegie describes the following: "We have an innate, unquenchable desire to know we are valued, to know we matter. Yet affirming this in each other is one of the most challenging things to do in our day and age. How obsessed we can be with the least important, most superficial things around." We do, in fact, live in an age of digital communications. Have you ever clicked on an article "just to read the comments section"? Or spent way too much time on a celebrity's Snapchat or Instagram account? Or divulged information about what you like, what you don't, what you're doing, what you're not doing, what you wish you were doing, or what you are eating on Twitter/Facebook/Insta/etc.? We need to first think about WHY we are motivated to share what we share, in what medium/channel, and in what context. We next need to think about the potential CONSEQUENCES of how we choose to communicate and what we tend to put emphasis on. Discussion Assignment: Please answer the following four questions. The answers can be broad and creative, but they do need to be well-thought out and in complete sentences. 1. Why do you think people have such a hard time avoiding complaining, criticizing, and condemning? (ex: you have bad service at a restaurant and post it immediately on Twitter) 2. Why do you think it's so easy to focus on the negative, but more difficult to affirm the good and communicate it? (ex: you send a classmate a nasty email when he misses a deadline on your group project) 3. Using the comparison chart given in Chapter 3, how is it that we can be our own worst enemies and work against our core desires by using communication styles or habits that directly contradict what we want most in the image we portray to others? (ex: Celebrity Instagram posts are often "monologue-type" in that characteristics of interested in making money, fake, and conceited often are front and center) Do you (or someone you know) spend time connecting with others, being viewed as authentic and interested in meeting everyone's needs, or do you lead with a lot of "I" statements and come across as needy or manipulative? 4. In what ways do you feel that social media and technology in general have changed the way we communicate with each other? What is most dangerous to communication and meeting our core desires? ...