Wednesday 25 January 2012

Do you know that almost three out of four people have a fear of public speaking and that this fear can be even greater than the fear of death?  Glossophobia is the medical term for this condition.  Symptoms can range from intense anxiety  that comes right before you are about to speak to your audience, or when you are only thinking about doing it, to physical symptoms  that come from feeling scared (e.g. increased blood pressure that makes your heart beat really fast, nausea, stiff neck/upper back muscles are tense, sweating).  People who have an extreme fear of public speaking will even try to avoid it altogether and if possible remove themselves from the situation. ("Glossphobia," n.d.)
I believe that I am one of the 75% of people who are afraid of public speaking.  ("Glossphobia," n.d.)  You see, this blog is my research assignment for my college course at Sheridan College HMC Campus in Mississauga, Ontario.   The assignment was to either do blogging or to give a presentation. The PowerPoint presentation had to be videotaped and sent to YouTube to be evaluated by my classmates and the professor.  Well, you can see what I chose. Even though I’m scared of presentations, I don’t mind them. What I don’t like is to be filmed because I get nervous when I see myself in videos or hear my own voice over a recoding. My fear is that I won’t sound good or look good like other presenters do.  So, blogging it is, but at least I can get to try something that I never have before.
Now time for some fun!   I’d like to conduct a quick survey, and would appreciate your input. I will   reveal the results in a future blog. Here’s my question: What are your top three greatest fears?  Please post your answers in the comment section below.
In case you haven't seen the video in my first posting, take a look!


References:

Glossophobia.com. (n.d.). Do You Suffer From Glossophobia?. Retrieved from http://glossophobia.com/

Picture Source: www.ClipartOt.com/1048749

2 comments:

  1. Michael:

    Back in 1974 there was a survey of students at the University of Manitoba that you might look at, since it asked them for three anxieties.

    You might also look at Canadian surveys of what people in Winnipeg and the general public feared.

    By the way, I don’t think that glossophobia is a useful word for describing speech anxiety.

    Richard

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  2. HI Michael,

    Have you considered re-doing the questionnaire now to establish how many people have a Fear of Public Speaking? I suspect the figures actually might have gone up since your research!

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