Interpersonal communication is communication between several people. This form of communication may range from the impersonal to the very personal. Impersonal communication is when you talk with a person you do not really care about – there is often a coldness or an indifference in your attitude when you engage in this kind of communication.
Then, there is social communication where you engage in niceties with people you meet in a social context. The most personal type of communication occurs when you talk with people who are close to you, for example, your best friend, family members and colleagues. Such relationships are interdependent, meaning that the actions of one party are very often directly affects the other party. Interpersonal communication can take place face to face as well as through electronic channels like video-conferencing, chat rooms, e-mail and Twitter.
Interpersonal communication is usually defined by communication scholars in numerous ways, usually describing participants who are dependent upon one another and have a shared history. It can involve one on one conversations or individuals interacting with many people within a society. It helps us understand how and why people behave and communicate in different ways to construct and negotiate a social reality. While interpersonal communication can be defined as its own area of study, it also occurs within other contexts like groups and organizations.
Interpersonal communication includes message sending and message reception between two or more individuals. This can include all aspects of communication such as listening, persuading, asserting, nonverbal communication, and more. A primary concept of interpersonal communication looks at communicative acts when there are few individuals involved unlike areas of communication such as group interaction, where there may be a large number of individuals involved in a communicative act.