• Broken Picture Telephone
• Broken Picture Telephone Game
• Telephone Game Story Examples
• Broken Telephone Game
• Broken Phone Game

The game of telephone is a classic ice breaker and party game. In other parts of the world it is known as Chinese Whispers. This international game is easy to set up and a lot of fun to play. You and your friends will try to pick a word or phrase, “pass it on” by whispering it to someone next to you, and have fun seeing how much it changed during the game. All you will need to play is a couple of friends or more, a word or phrase, and a quiet whisper.

As the game is popular among children worldwide, it is also known under various other names depending on locality, such as Russian scandal, whisper down the lane, broken telephone (in Greece), operator, grapevine, gossip, secret message, the messenger game, and pass the message, among others. You can keep score or just play for fun. This game can also be played in pairs. One pair member closes their eyes while the leader shows the word to the other pair members. The first pair to get the word right gets a point. This is a loud game because people tend to get excited and yell! Broken Telephone.

How to Play the Broken Telephone Game

• To play the Telephone or the Broken Telephone game, there should be a minimum of 6-8 heads. Try including as many people as you can as it will make the game more fun and entertaining.
• Make everyone stand in a straight line. For bigger groups, even a circular arrangement would work.
• Start the game by whispering a word or preferably a phrase in the ear of the person standing next to you. Try whispering as softly as possible to avoid any other person from hearing it. Let’s assume that the phrase whispered is “bananas are better than biscuits.”
• The next person whispers whatever he/she heard to the person standing next to him, and the game continues in this fashion until the last person receives the phrase.
• The fun actually begins when each person hears and communicates a different version of the original phrase to the next person. So for instance, the third or fourth person might have heard “bananas are bitter than biscuits”, and till it reaches the last person, it could have been something like this, “bandannas are butter and lipsticks.”
• The first and the last person say aloud the original and modified phrase, respectively. In most cases, both the phrases have no connection at all, especially the last phrase being completely weird and funny, getting a hearty laugh out of everyone.

Hard Phrases for the Broken Telephone Game

Broken Picture Telephone

• I’d love eating toasted cheese and tuna sandwiches.
• The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog and says hello to the cat.
• The angry birds ate candy and crushed the subway surfer.
• A pink pig and a pesky donkey flew a kite at night.
• Rabbits rumble, giants grumble, dogs bark in the dark, and wolves woo in the blue.
• Wednesday is the hump day, but is the camel happy about it.
• Alex the Alsatian ate eleven Éclairs in the evening with an Espresso.
• The Martians invested in shares when the NASDAQ dropped several feet.
• Roger racketed seventeen balls against Sylvester alone.
• Bob the builder rented Oswald’s apartment and borrowed Noddy’s car.

Have fun!

Some of the most important lessons that we learn in life are taught to us early on.

For example, I’m sure that most of you can remember playing the game Chinese whispers, or as it is commonly called in the United States, the “Telephone” game.

In the game, a message is given to the first person in a line of people and then they are instructed to pass the message on by whispering it in the ear of the next person in line. The message goes from person to person until it reaches the end of the line, and that person announces the message to the group. In most cases, the message that is announced to the group is significantly different from the message that was originally given to the first person in the line.

While the game is amusing, it also teaches us an important lesson that people often forget.

The lesson, as you probably have already figured out, is that information that you receive via word of mouth is not always accurate. In fact, if you don’t receive information directly from the source, there is a good chance that at least part of the message is incorrect.

Telephone Game 2.0

The Telephone game illustrates how quickly a message can be altered even when passed from person to person in a relatively short line.

In the real world word, the Telephone game often goes by a different name: Gossip.

As people relay a message from one person to another, the message often gets distorted, sometimes so much so that the intent of the original message is completely lost. What is left is an inaccurate statement that could actually do harm to the reputation of the person or business that is being talked about.

The tools that are available to people today (e.g., cell phones, text messages, social networking sites, email, etc.) only complicate the issue. These tools make it even easier for a rumor to spread at an alarming rate, particularly if the person who is being talked about is a celebrity.

Personal Responsibility

Deep down, we all know that the information that we hear about via word of mouth, whether it be online or offline, often contains misinformation. And, yet, people still choose to share it. In fact, for some people, gossiping is their primary form of entertainment.

Broken Picture Telephone Game

What we all need to remember is that what we say can have a negative impact on the person who we are talking about.

Business Implications

People aren’t the only victims of gossip. In fact, businesses are often the subject of conversations on the Internet. If the rumors take a turn for the worse, it can have a very negative impact on the business’s reputation.

For that reason, businesses need to monitor what people are saying about their products or services online. This will allow them to highlight the positive things and address and correct the potentially damaging negative information that is being spread online.

If you are looking for specific examples of how businesses have handled these types of situations, you might want to take the time to watch Paula Berg’s (@paulaberg) presentation in the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certification Program. In her presentation, Ms. Berg gives examples of how Southwest Airlines used the Internet to their advantage when potentially damaging rumors about the company started to spread, both online and offline.

Final Thoughts

It’s important to remember the lessons that we learned from the Telephone game early on in life.

For example, the Telephone game reminds us just how quickly a message can be changed into something completely different when it is passed between even a few people.

It is therefore important to remember that the things that we learn about via the rumor mill can, and often do, include incorrect information.

On a personal level, we need to be mindful of what information we spread, given the fact that what we say can have a negative impact on the individual or business that we are talking about.

Telephone Game Story Examples

From a business standpoint, it is necessary for businesses to monitor what is being said about their products and services online, if for no other reason than to correct the misinformation that is being spread.

Broken Telephone Game

As I have mentioned in other posts, words have power. In some cases, what is being said about a business can have a negative effect on the business’s reputation and ultimately, its bottom line.

Broken Phone Game

Photo credit: Hans_van_Rijnberk on Flickr.