Doing hand gestures when talking to a group of people is common, and I think that's fine (as long as it's not overboard). I use hand motions during presentations/critiques to other students to really state key concepts, and usually these presentations require showing something of importance so using hands is sorta required. But what about one-on-one conversations, do you think hand gestures are bad or fine when it comes to private talks?

Personally, people relying on hand gestures when talking to me comes across as somewhat annoying. The only real exceptions where using hands as a visual aid to what is being said is fine are when something technical (such as driving directions) or very physically discriptive (such as a piece of artwork) is being discuseed. Besides that, I tend to think the use of hand gestures in this scenario comes off as a sign of poor conversation skills. There are very few people I know who actually use hand gestures when talking on the phone, I'm guessing that moving hands helps these people when speaking dispite the person at the receiving end will never know. I find that kinda ...weird.

Meh.

wtf does it matter

It can, if it comes down to a job interview or something similiar.

I gesture a lot. My arms are always flailing around when I tell a story about me being dumb and the like, so I can't say I particularly mind them

I hand gesture a LOT. How could it mean poor conversation skills when it's entertaining and keeps the people focused on what you have to say?

If it's for entertainment purposes, then yeah it's all good. But if someone can't keep their focus in a one-to-one conversation when talked to and need hands then I guess they have issues.

Don't get into a conversation with mb. He flies his arms around all the time.

(I talk with my hands too)

I'm not like Stan, but I generally use my hands to convey a feeling of "God! I give up!" a lot.

93% of communication is non-verbal.

:p

I gesture a lot... but thats cause Im italian (MY HERITAGE SHUT UP OR ILL BAN YOU) and thats what italians do.

What he said.

Can I make fun of you and say my heritage is built upon making fun of people. You can't ban for that!

yeah we mock Italians all the time because they go stupid crazy with their gestures.

exercise some control over your ****ing elbows dude.

I do have poor conversation skills and I talk with my hands often.
It really depends on the situation but in casual conversations I almost always use my hands to some degree.
I usualy do it because I frequently forget what I'm trying to say or just loose whatever word I was looking for and spend a few moments moving my hands around to make sure the people I'm talking to know that I'm thinking rather than just gone completely braindead.

Actually I was just making that note because baconfish likes to tell me im not allowed to say my heritage is italian because I live in the states. or something

Totally dependent on what you are saying and who you are talking to.

If that person makes lots of hand gestures, I will probably do the same.

I mean, come on, do you people not know how to communicate with people? You vary your method.

Also, due to the fact that I live among other humans, I tend to overuse *facepalm*

This thread should really be asking whether hand gestures are appropriate for phone conversations.

It's ****ing hilarious to watching people flail all over the place in their cars.

Hahahah.

Mentally your hands do a lot to how you think.

Believe it or not (fellow choir people can back me up on this), using your hand to go up/down the scale while singing makes it much easier. It seems so simple and basic, but the visual and physical cue really does a lot.

Hand gestures are almost never conscious and are an effective way of supplementing verbal communication. Echoman loses.

god damn ****ing solfege hand symbols.

I never learned them and now I'm all befuddled with them.

I'm not a mean grouch, and I don't lash out when people don't turn their hands into dead weights. If it's a simple discussion, let's say about an event during driving, it's not necessary to make a hands-on-sterring-wheel visual aid for the comment "so I was driving down the road when..." Or bobbing hands when talking about a recent happening. Not needed!

I do most of my hand gesturing when I'm on the phone. As if pointing in a specific direction can make all the difference to someone who can't see me.

I can think of a fun hand gesture...

Yeah, a close conversation with Jill I see.

I talk with my hands all the time. Added to which my amazing communication skills (I thank you) were apparently the edge in landing me my job.

Hand gestures during conversations must be one of the few million insanely trivial things people for some shallow reason pay attention to.

That said, I wish I could actually do some hand gestures during a conversation instead of suddenly doing autistic things like piling up magnets or something. Geez.

That Family Guy clip pissed me off.

You're not an Italian.

its annoying when theres a public speaker or someone on stage making the same repetitive movements, but if the movement has some sort of symbolism to the subject it makes it better.