JORAS - Nigerian Journal of Religion and Society

Courtesy is the use of very simple, brief and effortless actions or words that we could incorporate in our daily lives for the achievement of effective communication at home and in the work place, but it rather seems that courtesy is now mostly being thrown away everywhere. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to resound the clarion call of Ashkena (2013) to bring back courtesy to the workplace and home as well. Therefore, using the descriptive design, this paper engaged secondary data to expound on the concepts of Courtesy and effective communication as a prelude to listing of the benefits and characteristics of courtesy followed by the discussion of the importance of courtesy for effective communication alongside courtesy acts for effective communication at home and the workplace then with technology usage. The key finding is that courtesy is not being utilized during technology use by people at home and at the workplace because, although they are physically present, focusing more attention on technology creates a psychological distance which results to disrespect, stress creation, and consequently ineffective communication. The conclusion is that humanity has nothing to lose but everything to gain by imbibing courtesy while communicating particularly at home and at work. Some of the recommendations are that people should always consciously invest in the use of courtesy acts and words in order to consistently succeed in their communication and not allow the items of technology that they possess take the place of the people that they need to happily relate with.

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