It's not the size of your communications technology that counts, it's how you use it.
Just about everyone has a telephone, and about 80% of people also own a mobile phone. You can ring people, fax, send text messages and email. So, why do some of us still struggle just to talk to one another?

Whilst I have heard of people having neighbour disputes via text messages, these innovations have little to do with how we communicate in our neighbourhoods.

Neighbour disputes arise in many ways, but all are sustained through a lack of constructive communication. Mediation solves most by enabling clients to define practical, mutually acceptable ways to communicate. Without this process, it is very difficult to counter the natural way in which we dehumanise the people we are in conflict with.

I couldn't say for sure if people are generally becoming less able to communicate effectively – most mediation services are barely a decade old. But I am convinced that despite all this technology there is little help available to enable people to reflect upon and improve their communication skills.

One of our clients telephoned us recently. Mrs B said her neighbour was playing loud music again, so clearly the draft agreement wasn't working, and what were we going to do about it.

Mediation agreements are seldom just about how loud music can be, or where to park cars, and so on. We also encourage our clients to think about how they would like to communicate when a problem crops up in the future.

Mrs B had agreed with her neighbour that a polite approach could be made if further disagreement arose. If this didn't work, or neither of them felt able to do this, they agreed to contact us to pass on a message.

It is important to be specific about how two neighbours are to communicate. For example, we often encourage residents to let their neighbours know in advance about parties. So how should they do it? Knock on the door, ring them, leave a note, text message, email – which would be best? Whereas many would choose quickly from such a list, very few in my experience choose correctly.

So, had Mrs B approached her neighbour? No – she didn't think it would do any good. Had she tried at all since the draft agreement was in place? No – everything has been much better since then. So even though things had improved, why couldn't she talk to her neighbour about this latest problem?

After a minute or two Mrs B agreed to talk to her neighbour while we stayed on the line. In the background we could hear Mrs B go and shout through the neighbour's letterbox "turn your music down, I've got the mediators on the phone". Not quite the style we had discussed, but it was a start. She came back to tell us that her neighbour hadn't replied but the music had been turned down.

This was the first incident in over a month. She had taken control, phoned for advice, approached her neighbour and achieved an outcome that suited them both. She clearly could improve her communication skills beyond shouting through letterboxes, but we may have to accept that this might be the best way for these two clients to talk.

We had a case not so long ago where the agreed method of communication was a strange form of Morse code tapped out on one of the internal doors.

I said earlier that recent innovations in communication technology had little to do with how we talk to our neighbours. But then again, no one tells jokes anymore – they send them by email. Children don't talk in the playground – they text each other. I'm certainly more aware that with two phones at work, two at home, email (two lots) and a fax machine, there are so many ways in which I can communicate with other people. The trouble is that I spend so long checking all my gadgets for messages and replying to them that I never have the time to just talk to anyone anymore.

Communicating through a piece of technology can be the same as communicating through the council or a solicitor. It keeps the other person at a distance – and in neighbour disputes this will not reverse the stereotyping and dehumanising that has already taken place.

When our children are growing up, we often have to support them in developing their communication skills to overcome their shyness, and so on. But not everyone has had this support. In the same way we may have to take a five-year-old to an ice cream van to show them they can ask for themselves, sometimes we have to do the same hand-holding with disputing neighbours.

So, don't judge your residents too harshly when they prefer to ring you rather than talk to their neighbour – technology is probably making them like that, and there isn't anyone around to teach them any better … is there?