How Communication Has Changed My Lifetime - Essay Example

Communication as it has changed in my lifetime Introduction Communication can be traced back to prehistory. In each stage of history it has undergone significant changes as economic and political systems of the relevant era have shifted. Several systems of power have contributed to the further evolution of communication (Innis, 1951). Communication can be a subtle and simple exchange of ideas or thoughts, it can be full and extended conversations, and also it can be something that has wider reach. Nearly 200,000 years ago it was speech that revolutionized communication, 30,000 years ago symbols became an important form of communication and in the past few centuries writing became yet another tool to communicate. Symbol has been at the core of each communication, it is a concept with conventional representation, and speech has been dubbed as the easiest tool to communicate. Today, using speech and modern technology, the longevity of the written or spoken word has increased manifold and formats in which the same are transmitted have blown through the roof. Thousands of years ago, there was a time when drums and smoke signals were used in Asia, Africa and America to communicate signals. That was telecommunication of that period, in which modifications were done from time to time until in 1790s in Europe first fixed semaphore systems were installed. This was replaced by electrical telecommunication in 1830s. Apparently communication has come a long way from the prehistoric times till now, with major transformations having taken place in this century. From fires, smoke signals, horns, communication drums and beacons of the prehistoric era to basic electrical signals of first half of 18th century to advanced electronic and electrical signals in late 18th and early 19th century, and finally first cellular phone network of 1981 to 2003's Skype internet telephony, it can be said that if there was one thing that made the fragmented world into a global hub of activities, it was the changes in communication which made it happen. The changes in modes and dissemination of communication have been perceptibly felt through the last two-three decades and fortunately I have witnessed how media technologies have changed the way we communicate through most part of this period. This essay is my own reflection of how the changes have occurred in this period, what have been the ramifications of this change and what shape is the change likely going to attain in the next two decades. Changes over the years During my childhood, the cell phones were not as much in vogue as they are now and as students we only had two options to communicate – one was exchanging notes or writing letters back and forth and other was talking face to face. If we were at homes, we would use fixed landlines to communicate and internet was still a curiosity. Later fixed lines got attached to a modem and that gave you a dial up connection to get connected to internet. Today that seems to have been an impractical idea but that time it was something to boast about. As technology evolved dial up started becoming obsolete and was replaced by broadband, which was far more efficient and fast. When I used broadband for the first time, I could assess the amount of patience I was having with dial up, which was slow and sometimes a pain too. Internet no longer meant getting tied down with your landline phone and over the next few years it actually meant getting connected to the world virtually while enjoying at a beach, while relaxing under the bark of a tree or while on the go. Internet, by incorporating rapid transformations in technology, changed the way you live, you behave, you express and you desire. When I was seeing internet getting bigger, better and faster, emails started getting feeble response and instant messaging picked up. Social networking sites like Facebook, which have built in instant messengers, became crowd-pullers and are still a rage. However, Skype which is capable of transmitting pictures instantly is being preferred over instant messaging gradually. The way media technology is being used in various methods of communication, the latter has undoubtedly affected the way we do peer to peer communication. The way life is lived now has become far more communication-based as it was when we exchanged under-the-table notes with our peers in school. Communication technology has greatly impacted our lives and its positive side can be seen in times of emergencies. We no more need to look for a pay phone to call someone or seek help; the tool to communicate is accessible at all times. The touch between two sides is instant but the human touch in the communication, which was there in the handwritten notes, is lacking. Even as this form of communication is rapid and happens in a matter of seconds, the 'impersonal touch' is the price this generation is paying. The most serious negative side of technological advances in communication is the automatic surveillance, peer to peer or otherwise, which modern tools of communication are capable of doing with or without ones knowledge. I have found that people with whom I am connected are now able to monitor most of my moves, where I have been, what I have been doing, and even why I have been doing so. This has led to serious repercussions of "being obsessive", a compulsive behavior in which one is persistently eager to know what the other person has been doing. "Facebook stalking" is one such behavior which people indulge in on Facebook. The stalker in this could be anybody – someone who came across your profile accidently, someone who has a crush on you, or someone who either likes or dislikes you. Viewed through psychoanalytical analysis this behavior has serious connotations in the long run. Further technological advances embedded in communication are going to make this only worse. Andrejevic has stated that activities and movements of people who possess interactive devices are wide in the open and exposed, which is resulting in easy access to data of personal nature. This is the downside of this advancement. The way communication has changed for good is fine, but how far it goes in making you cease to be a private person is something to ponder about. Each other's surveillance is going a little too far and interactions becoming more impersonal. Irresponsible use of communication will have negative consequences. Probably not much attention is being paid to the consequences that we might have to bear twenty years down the line. As of now most of us weigh advancement of communication technologies in terms of their capability to do ‘a lot’ for us in a ‘short span of time’. For example, today manager of a firm can transmit an urgent memo to the whole office with just a click of a mouse and in less than ten seconds. The distribution, assimilation of content and action on the same is quick and it needs the goal of urgency. The same manager, two decades ago would have required executing the same action in multiple steps of typing the memo, making as many copies as people in the office and getting the same distributed from desk to desk. This, no doubt, defeated the very goal of meeting an urgent situation. But despite this rapidity and communication explosion I personally feel we are hailing the victory of quantity over quality. Example could be that of twittering and texting; in both communication has been reduced to short ‘syllable text’, often in the form of abridged words and ravaged by wrong use of grammar, as against thoughtful analysis which was usually taken into consideration before firing an opinion or an order two decades ago. These forms of communication will, over the next few years, dumb-down meaningful conversations and give undue credence to impersonal updates over what used to be norm earlier – personal interactions. All said, the flip side of this communication explosion which I admire is that it has made today's man a widely informed person. The way technology is being used nowadays cannot be measured only in terms of how we are able to communicate now, but also how it helps us make informed decisions. I remember when I was a kid, my father, an avid book reader, would need to drive 30 miles to the nearest bookstore to get a book of his choice. He would come to know of new releases only at the bookstore and not before that unless the local newspaper carried a review on the same. He still buys books but seldom visits the bookstore and he often remarks that internet has kept him so well informed that he has bought 10 times the number of books which, in the absence of internet, he bought from the bookstore. My father says technology has kept him well informed and given his age and constraints of time, it has come as a boon to him. The advancement in communication technologies has made today's person connected to the world of his choice as never before, and if we talk of consumers, the power to accept or reject lies in their own hands. Technology has not changed communication in only one segment, but across all media. With the invention of computer, new demands got placed on communicating which, in turn, evolved new theories on how people must communicate through a given media based on technology. Advanced technologies have heralded an advent of new communication processes. Each communication process has its own way of interacting with new technologies and two names that could be cited as explorers of this paradigm are Gregory Ulmer and Richard Lanham. Lanham has argued that communication has been revolutionized by a personal computer since a new medium of expression has been discovered in the written word. It is communication in the digitized form but some way or the other its rips apart the very cultural assumptions. The written word, as was in use before the personal computer came, had an essence of its own; it transmitted a history and an inheritance that transcended from our past. It meant a pen, ink and paper embellished in the writer's own way and sensibility. Personal computer digitized the act, replicated the word but left out the essence. Lanham is not critical of it since this change is inevitable. Instead of mulling the rhetoric that surrounds it, he opines that as the process to communicate changes, we should develop aptitude to understand and adapt the change. Ulmer, on the other hand, has propounded electracy; a study that emphasizes the effect of electronic media on rhetoric and literacy. In a terse statement he argues that what electracy is to us now, literacy was to Classical Greeks then. Central to both periods is rhetoric giving rise to metaphysics and revolving around ethics, politics and aesthetics. The realm of literacy in electracy is surrounded by internet in then public sphere. In other words, literacy in the electronic media will be developed and communicated keeping in view the potential of the electronic media, which is the medium of dissemination. By this statement Ulmer refers to hypermedia, multimedia, social media, virtual worlds, and software media. So that nothing is left out in what was previously being communicated, Ulmer suggest development of new genre of writing, adjuvant to new way of thinking and in compatibility of new electronic apparatus that we have in use today. In the realm of knowledge, Ulmer is of the opinion that advent of technology would not let the communicated word suffer any distortion. It, according to both theorists, is just the new way of communicating, knowing and thinking. Conclusion Developments in communication and technology have taken place throughout history. Previously the development, say from a symbol to a written word, has been tardy, but the recent developments of three decades have been so rapid that they have changed the way communication is being felt, used or spread. Not only that communication has been seen changing as rapidly and as effectively as the mode that carries it. While there are concerns that such communication explosion has its downsides, the advantages cannot be underestimated too. Given the current rate of technological development and its use in communication, the next twenty years are going to witness a tirade of new communicative methods never thought of before. References Andrejevic, M. (2007). iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. Innis, H. A. (1951). The bias of communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Read More

The changes in modes and dissemination of communication have been perceptibly felt through the last two-three decades and fortunately I have witnessed how media technologies have changed the way we communicate through most part of this period. This essay is my own reflection of how the changes have occurred in this period, what have been the ramifications of this change and what shape is the change likely going to attain in the next two decades. Changes over the years During my childhood, the cell phones were not as much in vogue as they are now and as students we only had two options to communicate – one was exchanging notes or writing letters back and forth and other was talking face to face.

If we were at homes, we would use fixed landlines to communicate and internet was still a curiosity. Later fixed lines got attached to a modem and that gave you a dial up connection to get connected to internet. Today that seems to have been an impractical idea but that time it was something to boast about. As technology evolved dial up started becoming obsolete and was replaced by broadband, which was far more efficient and fast. When I used broadband for the first time, I could assess the amount of patience I was having with dial up, which was slow and sometimes a pain too.

Internet no longer meant getting tied down with your landline phone and over the next few years it actually meant getting connected to the world virtually while enjoying at a beach, while relaxing under the bark of a tree or while on the go. Internet, by incorporating rapid transformations in technology, changed the way you live, you behave, you express and you desire. When I was seeing internet getting bigger, better and faster, emails started getting feeble response and instant messaging picked up.

Social networking sites like Facebook, which have built in instant messengers, became crowd-pullers and are still a rage. However, Skype which is capable of transmitting pictures instantly is being preferred over instant messaging gradually. The way media technology is being used in various methods of communication, the latter has undoubtedly affected the way we do peer to peer communication. The way life is lived now has become far more communication-based as it was when we exchanged under-the-table notes with our peers in school.

Communication technology has greatly impacted our lives and its positive side can be seen in times of emergencies. We no more need to look for a pay phone to call someone or seek help; the tool to communicate is accessible at all times. The touch between two sides is instant but the human touch in the communication, which was there in the handwritten notes, is lacking. Even as this form of communication is rapid and happens in a matter of seconds, the 'impersonal touch' is the price this generation is paying.

The most serious negative side of technological advances in communication is the automatic surveillance, peer to peer or otherwise, which modern tools of communication are capable of doing with or without ones knowledge. I have found that people with whom I am connected are now able to monitor most of my moves, where I have been, what I have been doing, and even why I have been doing so. This has led to serious repercussions of "being obsessive", a compulsive behavior in which one is persistently eager to know what the other person has been doing.

"Facebook stalking" is one such behavior which people indulge in on Facebook. The stalker in this could be anybody – someone who came across your profile accidently, someone who has a crush on you, or someone who either likes or dislikes you. Viewed through psychoanalytical analysis this behavior has serious connotations in the long run. Further technological advances embedded in communication are going to make this only worse. Andrejevic has stated that activities and movements of people who possess interactive devices are wide in the open and exposed, which is resulting in easy access to data of personal nature.

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