Technology is always changing and with it comes the advancement of media forms. The debate between new media and old media has always been explored in communication history through its contrasting differences and unique similarities. However, it is important to note that new media stems from old media through its process of digitizing content onto new mediums. Kittler explains the progression of media through the three stages of communication history being, oral, printing and technical (Kittler, 1996). I dove deeper into this topic by interviewing my grandfather and comparing his use of old media through oral and printed communication, against my use of new media being technical communication. For example, anytime I needed to talk to or find a person I look through the internet or specifically social media sites, whereas my grandfather used written contact books/telephone directories and letters to keep track and talk to people, and if that didn’t work he would contact them in person. In this self-analysis, I will explore my grandfather's use of old media against my use of new media and draw differences while also underlining similarities. Being raised in early Punjab in India, my grandfather states his forms of communication was limited to speaking in person and through sending letters as his family was unable to afford a telephone at the time and quite frankly didn’t need one due to the general culture. “Every time I wanted to talk to my friends I would visit their house,
With the advent of computers and related technologies of communication, the nature of communication has changed drastically. There are some positive highlights to this change as well as negative highlights to this change based on my experience. In my younger years, the only form of communication was one on one communication or writing through snail mail. However, this is not the case today. Today, I make use of emails, social media, and other chatting forums to communicate both professionally and personally to family, friends, and relatives. I have found this change to have its advantages as well as disadvantages. In this paper, I will discuss how computer-mediated communication has aided my communication as well as how it compares to the type of communication that was available during my younger years. In addition, I will give a comparison between computer-mediated communication and person-to-person communication.
Today’s society is one that both reveres and fears social media, leaving people in an interesting position. In her essay “The Turn Within”, Susan J. Douglas discusses how communications technologies have led to an inward, narcissistic scope instead of creating a global village in which the world is bound together. There are oftentimes calls for a return to old media due to (somewhat unfounded) fears of newer media making people anti-social and self-absorbed. But how exactly is someone communicating by way of more
in how each generation uses technology .For instance, the Baby Boomers prefer face-to-face communication ,Generation X prefers electronic communication and the Millennials , who were born with technology, are always connected to it. Today, technology is an integral part of people’s lives. It provides people with news, entertainment and most importantly they use it to communicate with other people. The development of technology has considerably improved the way of living. Technology has made its impact on each and every aspect of people’s lives, including the means of communication. Nowadays, people use various ways to communicate with each other, such as mobile-phones, social networking sites and e-mails. Although technology has changed the
With the advent of information technology, the ways different aspects of life work and operate have changed a great deal. Media has always had a great influence in molding the culture of a society. There was a point of time when television and radio were invented and when computer was invented and there was little connection between the two. Time then travelled fast then through the age of cassettes, records, VCDs, DVDs, flash drive and then the internet. Media also started to go satellite on a massive scale and there came a point of time when media and digital communication systems became closely integrated with one another, opening the dimensions to digital media.
Technology in our society and all over the world has advanced tremendously through the years. If a person wanted to talk to someone other than face-to-face they would have to write a letter and mail it to that person. That was the only way people could really communicate with one another. They did not have a telephone, a computer or anything like we do now. In the 1990’s you did not see people walking down the street texting on their cell phones or getting on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. The only way people could get information was through the newspapers or by socializing with other people. There have been many changes since then. The effects of technology influence the way people think and act in our society.
Well after pondering over this idea for quite some time I decided to turn to my grandma for some answers. Her answer was that being a teenager in the 1950’s was the greatest time of her life. She explained how she’d make plans with her friends at school and would just meet up with them at the designated time. To communicate with someone long distance you would have to handwrite a letter and hope to get a response within three weeks. Now, you could type up a letter and send it via email with the hopes to get a response within the next few hours.
Stephen Johnson in the article “Social Connections” argues that “technology is dividing us as much as uniting us.” Johnson supports his argument by explaining that technology helps us block out people due to the use of technology. He even states, “We wear white earbuds that announce to the world: whatever you’ve got to say, I can’t hear it”.The author’s purpose is to point out to the reader that technology has pretty much taken over our means of communication. The author writes in a formal tone for critics of the communication technology, and educate the public on the effects that technology plays in our social
The new era of technology led to major developments in the evolution of mass media, worldwide. In our society, we originally communicated orally before the Internet and wireless devices existed. Individuals relied on traditional forms of mass media, such as the television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, to attain knowledge of the outside world. Thereafter, the development of new forms mass media evolved, and we were introduced to the Internet and other wireless communication devices such as IPads and tablets, smart phones and social media sites. Regardless of the rise and fall in popularity of certain forms of mass media, the evolution of mass media influenced the American culture greatly.
Communication is found in many different forms. These days, many people communicate through a combination of in-person discussions, telephone messages, internet forums, and countless other channels. In “Exploding the Phone” by Phil Lapsley, we explore how people communicated through phones during their introduction into society. More specifically, the author takes us on a journey on how a subset of phone users, called “phone phreaks,” connected with each other through the telephone. These people would get around paying for the phone bill by using various methods such as whistling, playing a flute, and even building sophisticated electronic boxes. Before we began reading the book, we were not expecting to read a story; we were expecting a technical overview of what exactly “exploding a phone” entails, and the text being quite complex. After reading the first chapter, however, we were very surprised at how the author worked to keep the book interesting by mixing some light technical details with important stories of how people exposed the phone networks to their advantage. An example of
The 20th century has witnessed dramatic developments in the history of media communications as well as human society. During the first half of the last century, electronic media such as the telegraph, radio and television to name a few were invented and became prevalent. Afterwards, the internet came into being and developed at an unprecedented rate to the point where it is now widely accepted that human history has entered into an information age. As claimed by a number of scholars, the appearance of new types of media can bring about dramatic influences on living conditions. Among them, Harold Innis, pioneer in this area of communication studies, is influential, firstly by employing two dimensions to media, namely time and space, and
What I started to realize was that I can remember a time when if you wanted to keep in touch with someone you actually had to mail them a letter. My father used to tell me stories about how he used to listen to the Lone Range every week on the AM radio. But I remember watching Buck Rogers and Star Trek on a tiny little black and white TV and what it felt like when we got our first color TV set. Who knew that bugs bunny actually was still grey on a color TV or that Jerry was brown and Tom, well he still had a hard time catching that mouse no matter what color he was. Now when I watch my young children playing the Wii on the 55 inch HD plasma TV I remember my first game of Pong I played on my Radio Shack TRS-80. I also remember having to go home to make a phone call and often listen as my children are talking on my cell phone while we drive to grammas’ house. Then to top it off is that they don’t know what life was like before the internet. So I decided to it would be more interesting to take a historical walk through of some of the most significant technology and telecommunications developments that I have been so privileged to see develop in my lifetime.
The question asked by many professionals is if technology has inhibited human interact, more so looking at social interaction face to face. Society has gotten to a period where teenagers, or even young adults, have never experienced a time without technology. Todd Link, a writer for the Telegraph – Herald in Iowa, communicates in his article mainly about the effects of technology and what the older generations think in this technological era. “The older generation [is] venting frustration over the work habits, social skills and lack of face-to-face communication skills of other generations”
“Societies have always been shaped by media for communication, it is impossible to understand social and cultural change without knowledge of the workings of media even the alphabet is a technology that is absorbed by young children to learn to speak through communication. The digital age is changing the way we use our brains. Rather than store important facts, today we are more likely to store information about how to find those facts where a particular file is located on the computer, how to find an important webpage again.
We as humans have always used communication to represent our beliefs, our people and ourselves. This has been a constant throughout history but the means of communicating has drastically changed as well as the purpose of technology. With the increasing presence of technology and its importance in our lives, it is evident that people are becoming even more vocal on their various social media accounts. This increase of technology use has also provided a new purpose of communication. Technology is not just used to communicate with others across the world or even look up information on your phone: people can now voice their opinions and
Information and entertainment today are usually spread through the development of technology. Due to this, various medias enable us to give and receive information. Media can be divided into traditional media and new media (Christian, 2014). While it is easy to pinpoint the differences of the two medias, there are also some similarities that tie both medias together.