essay on communication devices

Essay on Communication Technology

Students are often asked to write an essay on Communication Technology in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Communication Technology

What is communication technology.

Communication technology is how we send or get messages. Think of phones, computers, and the internet. These tools let us talk to people far away, share pictures, and work together, even if we’re in different places.

Changes Over Time

Long ago, people used letters, which were slow. Then came telephones, faster and easier. Now, smartphones and the internet let us chat instantly, anytime, making the world feel smaller and keeping us close to those we care about.

Benefits in Education

For students, communication technology means learning can happen anywhere. You can watch lessons online, join video calls with teachers, and get help from friends, all thanks to these amazing tools.

Staying Safe Online

While using these technologies, it’s important to stay safe. Keep personal information private, and be kind online. Remember, the internet is a public place, so always think before you share something.

250 Words Essay on Communication Technology

Communication technology is all about the tools and systems we use to share information with each other. Like when you send a message on your phone or video chat with a friend who lives far away. It can be simple, like writing a letter, or fancy, like sending emails through the internet.

The Parts of Communication Technology

There are a few key parts to this technology. First, we have devices like phones, computers, and tablets. Next, there’s the internet, which is like a big web connecting all these devices. Then, we have the software, which are the programs that let us do things like send emails or make video calls.

Why It’s Important

This technology is super important because it makes talking to people easy and quick. You can send a message to someone on the other side of the world in just seconds! It helps us learn new things, do business, and stay in touch with family and friends.

Challenges and Future

Even though it’s really useful, there are some challenges too. Sometimes, people worry about privacy and how safe their information is online. Also, not everyone has access to these tools, which can be unfair.

In the future, we expect communication technology to get even better. We might see new ways to talk to each other and share information that we haven’t even thought of yet. It’s an exciting area that keeps growing and changing all the time.

500 Words Essay on Communication Technology

The role of the internet.

The internet has changed how we communicate. It is like a big web connecting computers all over the world. With the internet, we can send messages, pictures, and videos to our friends and family no matter where they are. We can also find information about anything we are curious about by searching online.

Mobile Phones and Smartphones

Mobile phones have made it very easy to talk to others. We can carry them in our pockets and call or text someone anytime. Smartphones are even better because they can do so many things. We can use them to go on the internet, take photos, and use apps that help us learn and play.

Social Media and Email

Video calls and conferences.

Sometimes we want to see the person we are talking to. Video calls let us do that. We can see and hear each other on our screens. This is great for talking to family who live far away or for meetings when people cannot be in the same room.

The Importance of Communication Technology

Communication technology is important because it keeps us connected. It helps us make new friends and stay in touch with old ones. It is also useful for learning. Students can watch educational videos, talk to their teachers online, and find lots of information for their homework.

Challenges and Safety

Communication technology is a big part of our lives. It lets us talk to people, learn new things, and have fun. We should use it wisely and remember to stay safe online. As we grow up, new tools will come, and we will learn to use them to share and connect even more.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Essay on Communication in 100, 200 and 300 Words: The Essence of Survival

Updated on
Oct 20, 2023

Do you know how important it is to communicate with others? Communication is the primary means through which individuals share information, ideas and thoughts. Communication fosters strong relationships. In this essence, writing an essay on communication becomes important where you highlight the importance of communication, how it affects our everyday lives and what skills are required to become a communication professional . Let’s explore all these questions with some essays on communication.

Table of Contents

1 Essay on Communication in 100 Words
2 Essay on Communication in 200 Words
3 Essay on Communication in 300 Words

Essay on Communication in 100 Words

Communication is the cornerstone of human interaction and is crucial to sharing ideas, thoughts and information. By communicating, people foster relationships, which is vital for personal and professional growth. Effective communication facilitates understanding, resolves conflicts, and promotes collaboration. Whether verbal or nonverbal, it forms the basis of successful teamwork, decision-making, and social integration.

Clear communication is key to a harmonious society, nurturing empathy, and building trust. It encourages brainstorming, creative thinking, and the development of new solutions to complex problems. Its impact is profound, shaping the way we interact, learn, and evolve, making it an indispensable tool for human connection and progress.

Essay on Communication in 200 Words

What makes communication important is that it serves as the bedrock for exchanging ideas, information, and emotions. It is the essence of human interaction, enabling us to convey our thoughts, beliefs, and intentions to others. Effective communication is essential in every aspect of life, whether in personal relationships, professional environments, or social interactions.

Effective communication can form the basis of trust and mutual understanding and understanding. In personal relationships, communication fosters understanding and empathy, allowing individuals to express their feelings and needs, while also listening to and acknowledging others.

In the professional realm. Communication allows the smooth functioning of organizations. With communication, individuals can disseminate information, set clear expectations and encourage collaboration among team members. Moreover, effective communication in the workplace enhances productivity and promotes a positive work culture.

The uses and benefits of communication are not limited to just personal and professional realms. In social environments also, communication allows diverse groups to understand each other’s cultures, beliefs, and values, promoting inclusivity and harmony in society.

You can call communication a fundamental pillar of human existence, as it helps in shaping our relationships, work environments, and societal interactions. Its effective practice is essential for nurturing empathy, building trust, and fostering a more connected and understanding world.

Also Read: Essay on the Importance of English Language

Essay on Communication in 300 Words

How crucial communication is can be explained by the fact that it allows the smooth transfer of ideas, thoughts, feelings and information. Communication is the lifeblood of human interaction, playing a crucial role in the exchange of ideas, information, and emotions. It serves as the cornerstone of relationships, both personal and professional, and is integral to the functioning of society as a whole.

In personal relationships, it is essential to have effective communication for clear understanding and empathy. It allows individuals to express their thoughts, feelings, and needs, while also providing a platform for active listening and mutual support. Strong communication fosters trust and intimacy, enabling individuals to build meaningful and lasting connections with others.

Without communication, you might struggle for organizational success in the professional world. Clear and effective communication within a team or workplace ensures that tasks are understood, roles are defined, and goals are aligned. It enables efficient collaboration, problem-solving, and decision-making, contributing to a positive and productive work environment. Moreover, effective communication between employers and employees promotes a sense of transparency and fosters a healthy work culture.

In a broader sense, communication is vital for social integration and cultural understanding. It bridges the gaps between diverse groups, facilitating the exchange of values, beliefs, and perspectives. Effective communication fosters inclusivity and respect for cultural differences, contributing to a more harmonious and cohesive community.

However, communication is not just about sharing information and ideas. It also encompasses nonverbal cues such as body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice, all of which play a significant role in conveying meaning and emotions. It is the glue that binds individuals and communities together, fostering understanding, empathy, and collaboration. Practicing clear and empathetic communication is vital for creating a more connected, inclusive, and harmonious world.

Communication is the process of exchanging ideas, information, thoughts and feelings between individuals or groups through the use of verbal and nonverbal methods.

To write an essay on communication, you need to describe what communication is, what the importance of communication in our lives and how it can help us know different aspects of life.

To become an effective communicator, you must become an active listener and understand what others have to say. You must learn to express your thoughts clearly and concisely. You also need to ensure your body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice perfectly align with your ideas.

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu .

Shiva Tyagi

With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Chapter 6: 21st-century media and issues

6.10.2 Social media and communication (research essay)

Lindsey Matier

English 102, April 2021

Communication is extremely important in today’s world, whether it be verbal or nonverbal. It can take place through many different forms such as through writing, speaking, listening and physical actions. These forms of communication evolve and continue to improve over time. As humans, we rely on communication for almost everything and it is a way of life. Communication has evolved from talking to writing letters to texting or talking over the phone. Every time a new form of communication is brought up and becomes more popular, we have to adapt and evolve to that new lifestyle. Throughout all the new forms of communication and ways of evolving, social media has been one of the most influential so far. Social media has allowed us to create new ways of communicating, such as texting or posting through different apps. It can connect us with people all over the world and give us a platform to express ourselves in ways that have not been possible before. While social media started off as a small form of technology, it has morphed into aspects of our everyday life. Now there are apps for everything from social media profiles to online shopping. While social media and technology itself has evolved, this has also affected our communication with each other and the world. Social media has created a fast track for information in a matter of seconds. It can give people a platform with millions of followers overnight for doing practically anything. It can help people express themselves in new ways and connect with people who have similar interests. The end goal of social media is to make people happy and ultimately make lives easier.

Introduction

With all this being said, it is evident that social media is in our everyday lives and will continue to change. It has a very strong grip on society as social media usage continues to rise throughout the years. Generalizing social media, we are exposed to forms of media at almost all times of the day. Answering the question of what media is will help give a better understanding of social media as a whole. Media can be defined as a way of mass communication. This could include siting in the car listening to ads on the radio all the way to scrolling on twitter. We are exposed to social media less often than generalized media, but it tends to come in greater quantities when exposed. For example, for people that wake up and check twitter it is an instant flood of information with every scroll. Everything from politics to sports to celebrity news is available at the fingertips. The concern is not all focused on the overwhelming information, but also the overwhelming number of comments and opinions. If we wanted to debate or talk about something before social media it had to be done in person, face to face. Now with social media, we are able to fight with people in comment sections on a backup account with a different name and no connection to who we really are. This new form of communication takes away the vulnerability of speaking to people and having genuine conversation, and makes up for it in internet trolls. Overall, social media is impacting the way we communicate with each other and the real questions are: Is social media impacting us in a positive or negative way? Do the positive aspects outweigh the negative aspects? Is social media hindering the way we communicate in person with each other? Is their more room for improvement when it comes to dealing with communication in the social media spectrum? How is social media impacting younger generation’s communication versus older generation’s communication? How can we help improve our communication skills on social media and in real life?

Personal Research

Along with the other studies that I found from the sources I chose, I also conducted my own study to determine more accurate and recent data. I asked students mostly within high school and college range questions relating to social media and communication. I tried to get a wide range of data dealing with social media apps, screen time, and overall communication as a result of social media. I expected to see almost all negative responses about social media and communication. I figured that most people would respond saying that it has affected them negatively rather than positively, but the results were different compared to what I expected.

The first questions I asked had to do with social media itself. I asked questions about their most used social media apps, screen time, what age they were allowed to start using social media, and whether or not they think social media has had a negative or positive impact on them. As expected, most of the social media apps were some of the most popular ones like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. Overall, the average screen time for all apps was evenly split between 4-6 and 6-8 hours, which I also expected. Something that did surprise me was the amount of time spent on certain social media apps. The data was split pretty evenly three ways and all between 1-4 hours. The next two questions dealt with when they group surveyed started using social media. I asked these questions because a lot of the points I want to discuss later in my paper have to deal with age and whether younger generations are suffering when it comes to communication. More than half the people surveyed said that they wished that they had waited to get social media until they were older. Some said that it is not appropriate for younger kids and that it is just toxic in general. Something that I really like that a couple people mentioned was that in reality, social media at a young age is stupid and useless. A lot of people said they wish they would have enjoyed their childhood more and they would be more extroverted now if they had not been exposed that early. The last question of this section that I asked was if they thought social media has had a more positive or negative impact on them. Overall, the data was split but leaning slightly towards the more positive side. The positive answers mostly dealt with being able to talk to stay in contact with people and meeting new friends. The negative answers all related to mental health and feeling bad about themselves. A lot of people said it is toxic and very controlling and takes up too much of our time.

The next set of questions I asked had to do more with communication and interaction with and without social media. I asked questions like how they feel about social media and how it has impacted their communication, their mental health, and if it has made our lives easier. I decided to ask questions like these because I figured I would get a wide range of responses and a lot of people’s different opinions. I started off by asking if people are an introvert or an extrovert to get an idea of what the responses would be like, and 66% said somewhere in between the two. The response for the next question really shocked me because I received such a one-side response. I asked if they think social media has impacted their communication and the way they interact with others and 75% (18/24 people) said yes. This is the information that I was looking for along with the next two questions. The next question asked if they think social media has negatively impacted their mental health and 50% said yes. I also plan on using this as a research question to show that social media can affect our mental health and therefore affect the way we interact with and around other people. The last two questions are similar but the responses were both very good. Almost everyone answered yes to the question asking if social media has made our lives easier. Everyone that answered yes said they think so because it helps them talk to friends, stay in touch with people they do not see as much, and meet new people that they are comfortable talking to. The people that said no also made good points such as it takes over our lives and it is filled with too much hate and cancel culture. I agree with both sides and am very happy that people can feel a positive response especially when it comes to communicating with other people online. The last question I asked was used to wrap up the whole survey and topic. I asked if they think social media has made our generation’s communication improve or worsen. The data was pretty evenly split, and most people gave a positive and a negative. The people that said improve gave that answer because they said it broadens our communication and allows us to talk to people at a wider range. The people who said it has made it worse all said that it is ruining our face-to-face interaction and causing us to lose emotion. They said that some people do not even know how to have a proper in person conversation and that they are too dependent on their phones. Overall, I agree with both arguments that people made but I do think that the positives outweigh the negatives in most of these situations and questions.

Research Questions

The first question I want to ask has to deal with the overall social media and communication connection and has multiple other questions I would like to cover within it. The main question is: Is social media hindering the way we communicate with each other? I also want to touch on questions like: Is social media impacting us in a positive or negative way? Do the positives outweigh the negatives? The second set of research questions I have is: Is their more room for improvement when it comes to dealing with communication in the social media spectrum? How can we help improve our communication skills on social media and in real life? How is social media impacting younger generation’s communication versus older generation’s communication?

Research Question One

Social media and communication have a direct connection to each other and both have a strong impact on the outcome of the other. My first research question has to do with that. My questions center around how social media has impacted our communication, and whether or not it is positive or negative. First, I think it is important to note the changes and different characteristics that come into play when talking about this. Things like age and problems going on in our world can affect our social media usage and communication. While we connect to people on a deeper level when talking to the in person, social media has also given us a newer and more broad way of communicating. The article “How Social Media Affects Our Ability to Communicate” by Stacey Hanke, talks about different ways social media has impacted our communication. Social media has become so relevant in our day to day lives and Hanke describes it in a couple different ways. She describes it as information binging and the fear of missing out, social graces and conversational boredom. Within these, she explains how social media has become an excuse and escape to talk to people face to face. Hanke also talks about how even though it is limiting our in person communication, it can sometimes make communicating in general easier, by being able to talk to each other in just a few words (Hanke 1). In another article by Ryan J. Fuller titled “The Impact of Social Media Use on Our Social Skills”, he discusses similar topics to Hanke’s article but also brings up more positive attributes of social media. Fuller starts of his article by giving some statistics, stating that 75% of teens own cellphones and 25% of them using it for social media, and also says that they use 7.5 hours a day using it (Fuller 1). I am glad that this was brought up because it is important to know how much time is spent on social media, scrolling through feed. Next, Fuller starts to discuss some of the benefits of social media. He briefly explains how social media is beneficial because we are able to stay in touch with our friends and family, and share important parts of our lives with them. He also explains how it helps people reach out to new friends and provide themselves with more opportunities (Fuller 1). Overall, I really like that he mentioned these because it is important to keep in mind the vast majority of social media and communication. While some use it for more simpler purposes likes just keeping up to date with what is going on in the world, others use it to make new friends, find new job opportunities, and stay in touch with people. Another topic I find important when it comes to answering this research question is how Covid affected everything. With the pandemic, we were left inside with nothing to do but what was at our fingertips. This pandemic increased social media usage drastically. The article “Social Media Insights Into US Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Analysis of Twitter Data” by Danny Valdez et al, shows extensive research into determining just how much social media usage in the United States increased during the pandemic. They did experiments and surveys to determine multiple responses to research questions and show how much we rely on social media to communicate with each other. During the pandemic, everyone spent more time on their social media and their phone in general, probably more than they would like to admit. The article helps give more insight into this claim. There is the idea that social media was meant as an addition to our lives. For some people, it has become an addiction and a new piece of their life. The article focuses on how social media could be a toxic place and have a negative effect on our mental health. The time period for this information focuses around the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from Twitter, Valdez created a study to determine the mood of people during the pandemic and the usage throughout (Valdez et al 2). Collecting tweets with certain hashtags and during time periods, the goal was to determine how much the pandemic affected people’s moods, and how much they put out and shared on social media. They used hashtags, timeline data, and tweets from different periods such as the first lockdown, different stay at home orders, etc. Given the responses to the data, they were able to determine the increase in social media usage. We cannot determine if this had a positive or negative effect on the people who were using Twitter, but we can infer that social media is becoming a key part of our lives. Not being able to talk to people as much in person during the first few months of the pandemic greatly affected communication, in positive and negative ways. Communication over the phone increased due to the amount of free time that people had and were able to spend talking to others. Contrary to that, in person communication also decreased given that people were not really allowed to leave the house. The next article by Tayebi et al, “The Role of Information Systems in Communication Through Social Media” focuses a lot about how we have evolved over time with social media and communication. They start off by talking about how social networks are like social media societies. They explain it by resembling it to a human society, as it is filled with people communicating, regardless of time or place. They also exemplify other aspects such as emotional support, information, emotions (Tayebi 2). Social media is constantly looked at through such a negative light due to some of the major bad events that have taken place. While it can be difficult at times to look past the negatives, it is important to recognize and acknowledge the positives. The growth of scientific research would not be possible without the amount of information received from the media (Tayebi 3). Without social media and media in general, we would not be where we are today as a society. As mentioned earlier, it is so easy to get lost in the negative aspects of social media and discard the positive ones. Positive parts of social media such as widespread communication and unlimited access to information makes it all worth it. Staying on topic with positive aspects of social media and communication, social media in the workplace has also broken down barriers for communication. The article “A Guide to the Successful Use of Social Media in the Workplace” by Clark Boyd gives insight into how social media has improved the workplace, and ultimately communication and interaction as a whole. Companies can use social media as a form of branding and way to communicate their products (Boyd 4). Boyd states, “Harvard Business Review finds that 82% of employees believe social media improves work relationships. Left to their own devices, your teams will connect and communicate on social networks, both inside and outside the office.” This directly relates to the research question asking whether social media hinders our communication with each other. Social media also helps when it comes to dealing with complaints placed online. By seeing these through social media, it can help the company communicate either with the person or their company the concerns that are being stated (Boyd 9). Overall, it is safe to say that social media has directly affected communication throughout different aspects of our lives.

Research Question Two

My second set of research questions has a lot to do with the future and how we can improve. Questions such as: Is their more room for improvement when it comes to dealing with communication in the social media spectrum? How can we help improve our communication skills on social media and in real life? How is social media impacting younger generation’s communication versus older generation’s communication? The article “What is Literacy” by James Paul Gee talks a lot about the basics of communication. I find this an important article to talk about before I go into more detail with this second research question. Gee explains discourse as a socially accepted way of speaking, thinking, and acting (Gee 1). It is important to note this because social media has changed that discourse for us. We no longer communicate and interact the same way in which we use to therefore almost giving us a new discourse. Another thing Gee discusses is identity kits. Gee explains identity kits as “appropriate costumes and instructions on how to act and talk” (Gee 2). This relates to social media because there is a certain way we communicate online that we wouldn’t do in person. For example, we use emojis and abbreviations to communicate on social media or over text, but this is something we would not do when communicating face-to-face. There are also some basic well-known rules of social media that follow along the lines of an identity kit. Such as, for Instagram it is a common idea not to like people’s pictures from too long ago. When you say this aloud it sounds like it is not a big deal and silly almost, but for people that use social media it is something that makes sense. The next article is going to focus more on the question that has to do with room for improvement of communication. The article “The Positive Effect of Not Following Others on Social Media” by Francesca Valsesia, Davide Proserpio, and Joseph C. Nunes involves how we deal with social media and how we react to it. The article has a lot to do with pyramid schemes and marketing schemes on social media, simply due to follower count. Social media has a lot of power over us and the content we see. Influencers have too much impact on what we see every day and this overall effects our communication (Valsesia 1). Social media feeds us information at our fingertips, whether it be true or false. Valsesia is trying to get the point across that social media has no impact on our lives without the phone and therefore, having a smaller follower count is better for our communication and overall wellbeing in the first place. Leading into my next article, social media can have a huge impact on the younger generation. This leads into part of my second research question dealing with the younger generation and their communication. The article “The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities” by Jacqueline Nesi shows how social media is a very complex brand of information and makes it complicated for everyone. Younger kids having access to it and multiple devices like computers and phones makes it that much more difficult. There are a lot of positives and negatives for younger kids having access to social media and the internet in general. It has an impact on their mental health and studies show it leads to signs of depression, body dysmorphia, eating disorders (Nesi 2). It can also affect their communication and outward identity due to things such as bullying, internet drama, and behavioral problems. While it does have serious negative risks, social media also can bring a lot of new positive ones. Things like creative ideas, humor and entertainment, and being able to explore their identity are all really great positives that social media gives us (Nesi 4). Most of them using it as a way to connect with friends and family and help them feel a sense of acceptance and belonging (Nesi 4). Similarly to this, social media has given a great outlet for kids and young adults to speak out on issues going on in the world. The article “Building Bridges: Exploring the Communication Trends and Perceived Sociopolitical Benefits of Adolescents Engaging in Online Social Justice Efforts” by Mariah Elsa Kornbluh goes into detail about the racial injustices in the world and how they are communicated through social media. Social media networks can help connect kids to different backgrounds and aspects of their lives (Kornbluh 1). Kornbluh expresses how a society only can flourish under civic engagement and being able to express ourselves, and social media is helping us do that. It is helping the younger generation prepare for the civic role that they will undergo (Kornbluh 2). Social media helps play a major role in participating in political movements and bringing awareness to topics (Kornbluh 3). This all is done by the younger generation and would not be possible without them. So, while it is easy to look at the negative parts of social media and how it effects the younger generation, it also brings great awareness to real life problems in our world. This last article I wanted to go over dealing with this research question has to do with the pandemic. The article “Responses to COVID-19 in Higher Education: Social Media Usage for Sustaining Formal Academic Communication in Developing Countries” by Abu Elnasr E. Sobaih, Ahmed M. Hasanein and Ahmed E. Abu Elnasr briefly talks about communication with social media in higher education systems. Education systems had to switch from in person learning and communication to online learning, which was a struggle for everyone. Throughout the time that this took place, results showed that social media had a positive effect on students dealing with this (Sobaih 1). Students used social media to build a community and help support each other through this rough time. Through these results, proper usage of social media can be shown as a positive result for a new era of learning (Sobaih 1). This is just one more reason why social media can help us improve our future.

After answering my research questions, it has become clear to me that while social media does have negative aspects, the positive aspects outweigh them. Between the articles and my own research, I have enough evidence to prove that social media does effect communication, but in a more positive way. The way we act and present ourselves is heavily influenced by social media and communication between generations are different and can be seen that way. It is important to note the accomplishments we have made as a society with social media and the media in general. It has helped connect families, provide support groups, and provide entertainment in desperate times. Our communication has changed because of social media but has changed and helped us for the better in the long run. Keeping social media a positive place and staying away from the toxic people on it will only help us grow and learn new things about ourselves.

Works Cited

Boyd, Clark. “A Guide to Using Social Media in the Workplace in 2021.” The Blueprint , The Blueprint, 13 May 2020, www.fool.com/the-blueprint/social-media-in-the-workplace/.

https://www.fool.com/the-blueprint/social-media-in-the-workplace/

D, Valdez, et al. “Social Media Insights Into US Mental Health During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Analysis of Twitter Data.” Journal of Medical Internet Research , vol. 22, no. 12, 14 Dec. 2020, pp. 1438–8871.

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.ulib.csuohio.edu:2050/eds/detail/detail? vid=8&sid=ff59b04c-b868-44cd-b864-4538e112a2ea%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=33284783&db=mnh

J, Nesi. “The Impact of Social Media on Youth Health: Challenges and Opportunities.” North Carolina Medical Journal , vol. 81, no. 2, 2020, pp. 116–121.

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.ulib.csuohio.edu:2050/eds/detail/detail?vid=10&sid=ff59b04c-b868-44cd-b864-4538e112a2ea%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=32132255&db=mnh

Gee, James Paul. “What is literacy.” Negotiating academic literacies: Teaching and learning across languages and cultures (1998): 51-59.

https://academic.jamespaulgee.com/pdfs/Gee%20What%20is%20Literacy.pdf

Hanke, Stacey. “How Social Media Affects Our Ability to Communicate.” Thrive Global , 13 Sept. 2018, thriveglobal.com/stories/how-social-media-affects-our-ability-to-communicate/.

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/how-social-media-affects-our-ability-to-communicate/

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.ulib.csuohio.edu:2050/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=467b825c-34f8-4e47-95df-e5b2b61bbaf4%40sessionmgr4006

Kornbluh, Mariah Elsa. “Building Bridges.” Youth & Society , vol. 51, no. 8, 2017, pp. 1104–1126., doi:10.1177/0044118×17723656.

https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.ulib.csuohio.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0044118X17723656

Retchin, Sarah, et al. “The Impact of Social Media Use on Social Skills.” New York Behavioral Health , 1 Dec. 2020, newyorkbehavioralhealth.com/the-impact-of-social-media-use-on-social-skills/.

https://newyorkbehavioralhealth.com/the-impact-of-social-media-use-on-social-skills/

Sobaih, Abu Elnasr E., et al. “Responses to COVID-19 in Higher Education: Social Media Usage for Sustaining Formal Academic Communication in Developing Countries.” MDPI , Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 12 Aug. 2020, www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/16/6520/htm.

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Tayeb, Seyed Mohammad, et al. “The Role of Information Systems in Communication through Social Media.” International Journal of Data and Network Science , vol. 3, no. 3, 2019, pp. 245–268., doi:10.5267/j.ijdns.2019.2.002.

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Valsesia, Francesca, et al. “The Positive Effect of Not Following Others on Social Media .” Journal of Marketing Research , vol. 57, no. 6, Dec. 2020, pp. 1152–1168.

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Understanding Literacy in Our Lives by Lindsey Matier is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Communication Devices: Advantages and Disadvantages Essay Example

Pages: 5 (1191 words)
Published: June 18, 2016
Type: Essay

Communication Technology geared many lives. Gadgets and other technological advances have become a necessity in the world today.

Moreover, the constantly updating technology of communication devices also paved the way for fast paced business transactions. Innovation, the outstretched span of possibilities, gave light to distinct effects on individuals, both positive and negative. These technology comprises of mobile phones, blogging, and virtual networking. This paper aims to distinguish these advantages and disadvantages as a form of evaluation.

To begin with, communication devices helped man improve his lifestyle, especially on his social aspect of being. Based on the given articles from The New York Times, there were cases where advance communication technology is at a greater disadvantage.

This technology was invented and enhanced to make commun

ication ties faster and easier. However, on detailed cases given in the news articles, virtual networks and other communication devices pull people from reality.

For example, in the article “Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally” by Ritchel (2007), in a therapy circle while one was discussing about her life regarding sexual abuse, one cell phone rang. It more than disturbed the therapy circle as the owner of that phone answered the call, and even conversed with the person on the other end of the line.

People loose their sense of etiquette, the article presented, as people continue to think that they should always respond to their calls and text messages.

This affects one's relationships with “real life” people. Virtual friends isolates a user from reality, technically speaking. More often than not, in relation to those who commonly use similar technology, these people becom

more enclosed in relating to virtual friends, than real life ones.

According to the article by Taub, cell yell is a term coined by those who are against them, and this refer to how people speak too loudly on their mobile phones. This phenomenon is strongly related to how one is isolated to himself and to the technology.

When one unconsciously yells to his phone during a conversation, it can be said that he does not care what the person beside him is thinking about his conversation. He slowly detaches himself from society, and conjoins another.

Furthermore, when one yells to his mobile, the people who can hear him speak is forced to eavesdrop, in which case, the people hear details they were not interested to hear in the first place. It can be rather discomforting to be informed unintentionally, especially when it concerns death, fear, or anything that could be disgusting.

Moreover, as the rampant growth of cellphone users pursue the population, so does the probability that people tend to ''privatizing the public space,'' as Dr. Kopomaa said in Taub's article (2001), without full consciousness.

When one speaks to his or her phone, regarding serious or lax issues, people within hearing vicinity will know what he or she is talking about. In addition to that, the audience does not always care about what they hear from half of a conversation.

They just listen, and imagine what the other person is saying in response, as shared by the same article. This is also a case where one does not fully recognize the presence of other people as they speak

on their mobile phones.

The article by Cohen also used stories regarding virtual networks. These networks are often accessible through their mobile phones. They send quick messages, which are receive by all the friends they have in their account.

Little messages often 2 sentences long answer one basic question, “What are you doing?” It was found out that there were alarming cases where one used the network to express his thoughts regarding his attempt to commit suicide. Many were alarmed by his messages and many messages were sent to his mobile phone to discourage his ideas.

His family and close friends panicked, and even sent for the police. The man was later found sleeping in his car. This story presented that communication devices can be used so callously, that one can simply connect with one person with just a short message, and disconnect with him by not responding to the message.

On the other hand, advanced communication technology has its advantages. As mentioned earlier, updated devices promote convenient and immediate interaction between people.

This is probably one of the most important factors communication devices adhere to. Having a person across the country, or across the world to respond to you in minutes is something truly amazing. Barriers once built to keep people separate has been penetrated by something quite intangible.

Another advantage one can get from such advanced technology is that virtual friends can be true friends. Earlier, it was expressed that such networks pull people from the real world.

As it was in one of the supplied articles, one man resorted to online communities because he did

not feel like he belonged in the locale he was currently residing in. As a result, this man moved to another city where most of his friends connected to his account currently lives in. He found the crown he could be in sync with.

One article also shared that some problems were easily solved. In the case when a couple almost broke up, their virtual friends immediately sent them messages to reconsider that possibility. Not only were responses quick, but the concern for that couple can be very genuine; otherwise, they wouldn't have sent a message.

These people who seemed isolated from reality are in a reality where they could be truly happy, to have that sense of belongingness. To be able to connect and relate with other people is almost a natural necessity for one's survival, especially at the state of society today.

Another personal advantage one can get from this technology is to be able to hear a lot of stories. One of the reasons behind calling someone, or sending emails and messages, is to receive a reply with a story along with it.

People can be sentimental about the stories they happen to listen to, and often forward this sentiments to other people. Some have complained that there are things which they did not have to overhear, but other stories can be very heartwarming.

In conclusion, any form of technology has its own advantages and disadvantages depending on which angle they would like to perceive it. If one would think that technology can be very disastrous, then to them it is. However, for people who had been

shy and hesitant in socializing with other people, this technology has been their avenue to negate that.

Works Cited

Cohen, Noam. “The Global Sympathetic Audience.” The New York Times 4 November 2007.
The New York Times Company. 19 December 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/fashion/04twitter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2.
Ritchel, Matt. “Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally.” The New York Times 4 November 2007.
The New York Times Company. 19 December 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/technology/04jammer.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Taub, Eric. “Cell Yell: Thanks for (Not) Sharing.” The New York Times 22 November 2001.The New York Times Company. 19 December 2007 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? res=9A00E2DC173AF931A15752C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
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More From Forbes

The role of technology in the evolution of communication.

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For as long as humans have been on this planet, we’ve invented forms of communication—from smoke signals and messenger pigeons to the telephone and email—that have constantly evolved how we interact with each other.

One of the biggest developments in communication came in 1831 when the electric telegraph was invented. While post existed as a form of communication before this date, it was electrical engineering in the 19th century which had a revolutionary impact.

Now, digital methods have superseded almost all other forms of communication, especially in business. I can’t remember the last time I hand wrote a letter, rather than an email at work, even my signature is digital these days. Picking up the phone is a rare occurrence too—instead, I FaceTime, Zoom, or join a Google Hangout.

When I look back at how communication has advanced over the years, it really is quite incredible…

The Telephone

In 1849, the telephone was invented and within 50 years it was an essential item for homes and offices, but tethering impacted the flexibility and privacy of the device. Then, came the mobile phone. In 1973, Motorola created a mobile phone which kick-started a chain of developments that transformed communication forever.

Early smartphones were primarily aimed towards the enterprise market, bridging the gap between telephones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), but they were bulky and had short battery lives. By 1996, Nokia was releasing phones with QWERTY keyboards and by 2010, the majority of Android phones were touchscreen-only.

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In 2007, Steve Jobs revealed the first iPhone to the world and Apple paved the way for the aesthetics of modern smartphones. Before the iPhone, “flip phones”, and phones with a split keyboard and screen were the norm. A year later, a central application store with an initial 500 downloadable ‘apps’ was launched. Currently, there are over two million apps available in the Apple App Store.

The Internet

Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has had a revolutionary impact on communication, including the rise of near-instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone calls, two-way interactive video calls, discussion forums, blogs, and social networking.

The internet has made communication easier and faster, it’s allowed us to stay in contact with people regardless of time and location. It’s accelerated the pace of business and widened the possibilities within the enterprise space. It’s allowed people to find their voice and express themselves through social media, YouTube and memes. The internet has connected and divided us like nothing before.

As a byproduct of the World Wide Web, email was introduced to the world in 1991 (although it had been operating years before) and it has vastly changed our lives—whether for better or worse depends on your viewpoint. The first users of the messaging platform were educational systems and the military who used email to exchange information. In 2018, there were more than 3.8 billion email users —that’s more than half the planet. By 2022, it’s expected that we will be sending 333 billion personal and business emails each day.

While email is invaluable and we can’t imagine a world without it, there are tools that are springing up that are giving email a run for its money. Take Slack (an acronym for “Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge”) for example, the company which launched in 2014 has often been described as an email killer . However, while Slack has become the most popular chat and productivity tool in the world used by 10 million people every day, email is still going strong. In recognition of this, Slack’s upgrades have ensured that people who still rely heavily on email are not excluded from collaboratory work.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Wearable Technology

The first instance of wearable technology was a handsfree mobile headset launched in 1999 , which became a piece of tech synonymous with city workers. It gave businesspeople the ability to answer calls on the go, most importantly, while driving.

Ten years ago, the idea that you could make a video call from an item other than a phone would have been a sci-fi dream. Now, with smartwatches, audio sunglasses, and other emerging wearable technology, these capabilities are a part of our daily lives.

Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash

Virtual Reality (VR)

The next generation of VR has only been around since 2016, but it’s already shaking up communications. The beauty of VR— presence —means you can connect to someone in the same space at the same time, without the time sink and cost of travel, even if participants are on different continents.

VR also helps to facilitate better communication. In a typical discussion, a lot of information is non-verbal communication which can be transcribed in VR. Voice tone, hesitations, head and hand movements greatly improve the understanding of the participants' emotions and intents. Plus in VR, all distractions are removed and people can be fully focused on what is happening around them. In fact, MeetinVR claims that there is a 25% increase in attention span when meeting in virtual reality compared to video conferencing.

In addition, research suggests we retain more information and can better apply what we have learned after participating in virtual reality. 3D is a natural communication language overcoming linguistic barriers as well as technical jargon.

5G, the 5th generation of mobile network, promises much faster data download and upload speeds, wider coverage, and more stable connections. These benefits will bring about significant improvements in communication. Instantaneous communication will be possible and those patchy frustrating video calls will be a thing of the past.

The average 4G transmission speed currently available for our smartphones is around the 21 Mbps mark. 5G will be 100 to 1000 times faster. The Consumer Technology Association notes that at this speed, you could download a two-hour movie in just 3.6 seconds, versus 6 minutes on 4G or 26 hours on 3G. The impact of 5G will go far beyond our smartphones as it will allow millions of devices to be connected simultaneously.

Looking ahead, there is already buzz about 6G . Although it’s still in basic research and around 15-20 years away, it’s interesting from an innovation point of view. 6G will form the framework of the connected utopia we aspire towards, and with it will come untold improvements in the speed and consistency of our communication.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Effective Communication — Effective Communication: The Key to Building Strong Connections

Effective Communication: The Key to Building Strong Connections

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The importance of effective communication, key elements of effective communication, barriers to effective communication, strategies for improving communication, 1. building relationships:, 2. resolving conflicts:, 3. achieving goals:, 4. personal development:, 5. success in the workplace:, 1. clarity:, 2. active listening:, 3. empathy:, 4. nonverbal communication:, 5. respect:, 1. misunderstandings:, 2. lack of active listening:, 3. emotional barriers:, 4. assumptions and stereotypes:, 5. lack of feedback:, 1. practice active listening:, 2. foster empathy:, 3. be mindful of nonverbal cues:, 4. seek feedback:, 5. adapt to your audience: h3>, 6. practice constructive communication:, 7. educate yourself:.

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The Computer as a Communication Device

November 9, 2001 by j.c.r. licklider, robert taylor.

This landmark 1968 essay foresaw many future computer applications and advances in communication technology, such as distributed information resources and online interactive communities that are commonplace today as Internet chat rooms and peer-to-peer applications.

Originally published in Science and Technology , April 1968 . Published on KurzweilAI.net November 9, 2001.

In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face.

That is a rather startling thing to say, but it is our conclusion. As if in confirmation of it, we participated a few weeks ago in a technical meeting held through a computer. In two days, the group accomplished with the aid of a computer what normally might have taken a week.

We shall talk more about the mechanics of the meeting later; it is sufficient to note here that we were all in the same room. But for all the communicating we did directly across that room, we could have been thousands of miles apart and communicated just as effectively-as people-over the distance.

Our emphasis on people is deliberate. A communications engineer thinks of communicating as transferring information from one point to another in codes and signals.

But to communicate is more than to send and to receive. Do two tape recorders communicate when they play to each other and record from each other? Not really-not in our sense. We believe that communicators have to do something nontrivial with the information they send and receive. And we believe that we are entering a technological age in which we will be able to interact with the richness of living information-not merely in the passive way that we have become accustomed to using books and libraries, but as active participants in an ongoing process, bringing something to it through our interaction with it, and not simply receiving something from it by our connection to it.

To the people who telephone an airline flight operations information service, the tape recorder that answers seems more than a passive depository. It is an often-updated model of a changing situation-a synthesis of information collected, analyzed, evaluated, and assembled to represent a situation or process in an organized way.

Still there is not much direct interaction with the airline information service; the tape recording is not changed by the customer’s call. We want to emphasize something beyond its one-way transfer: the increasing significance of the jointly constructive, the mutually reinforcing aspect of communication-the part that transcends “now we both know a fact that only one of us knew before.” When minds interact, new ideas emerge. We want to talk about the creative aspect of communication.

Creative, interactive communication requires a plastic or moldable medium that can be modeled, a dynamic medium in which premises will flow into consequences, and above all a common medium that can be contributed to and experimented with by all.

Such a medium is at hand–the programmed digital computer. Its presence can change the nature and value of communication even more profoundly than did the printing press and the picture tube, for, as we shall show, a well-programmed computer can provide direct access both to informational resources and to the processes for making use of the resources.

Communication: a comparison of models

To understand how and why the computer can have such an effect on communication, we must examine the idea of modeling-in a computer and with the aid of a computer. For modeling, we believe, is basic and central to communication. Any communication between people about the same thing is a common revelatory experience about informational models of that thing. Each model is a conceptual structure of abstractions formulated initially in the mind of one of the persons who would communicate, and if the concepts in the mind of one would-be communicator are very different from those in the mind of another, there is no common model and no communication.

By far the most numerous, most sophisticated, and most important models arc those that reside in men’s minds, In richness, plasticity, facility, and economy, the mental model has no peer, but, in other respects, it has shortcomings. It will not stand still for careful study. It cannot be made to repeat a run. No one knows just how it works. It serves its owner’s hopes more faithfully than it serves reason. It has access only to the information stored in one man’s head. It can be observed and manipulated only by one person.

Society rightly distrusts the modeling done by a single mind. Society demands consensus, agreement, at least majority. Fundamentally, this amounts to the requirement that individual models be compared and brought into some degree of accord. The requirement is for communication, which we now define concisely as “cooperative modeling”–cooperation in the construction, maintenance, and use of a model.

How can we be sure that we are modeling cooperatively, that we are communicating, unless we can compare models?

When people communicate face to face, they externalize their models so they can be sure they are talking about the same thing. Even such a simple externalized model as a flow diagram or an outline–because it can be seen by all the communicators–serves as a focus for discussion. It changes the nature of communication: When communicators have no such common framework, they merely make speeches at each other; but when they have a manipulable model before them, they utter a few words, point, sketch, nod, or object.

The dynamics of such communication are so model-centered as to suggest an important conclusion: Perhaps the reason present-day two-way telecommunication falls so far short of face-to-face communication is simply that it fails to provide facilities for externalizing models. Is it really seeing the expression in the other’s eye that makes the face-to-face conference so much more productive than the telephone conference call, or is it being able to create and modify external models?

The project meeting as a model

In a technical project meeting, one can see going on, in fairly clear relief, the modeling process that we contend constitutes communication. Nearly every reader can recall a meeting held during the formulative phase of a project. Each member of the project brings to such a meeting a somewhat different mental model of the common undertaking-its purposes, its goals, its plans, its progress, and its status. Each of these models interrelates the past, present, and future states of affairs of (1) himself, (2) the group he represents; (3) his boss; (4) the project.

Many of the primary data the participants bring to the meeting are in undigested and uncorrelated form. To each participant, his own collections of data are interesting and important in and of themselves. And they are more than files of facts and recurring reports. They are strongly influenced by insight, subjective feelings, and educated guesses. Thus, each individual’s data are reflected in his mental model. Getting his colleagues to incorporate his data into their models is the essence of the communications task.

Suppose you could see the models in the minds of two would-be communicators at this meeting. You could tell, by observing their models, whether or not communication was taking place. If, at the outset, their two models were similar in structure but different simply in the values of certain parameters, then communication would cause convergence toward a common pattern. That is the easiest and most frequent kind of communication.

If the two mental models were structurally dissimilar, then the achievement of communication would be signaled by structural changes in one of the models or in both of them. We might conclude that one of the communicating parties was having insights or trying out new hypotheses in order to begin to understand the other-or that both were restructuring their mental models to achieve commonality.

The meeting of many interacting minds is a more complicated process. Suggestions and recommendations may be elicited from all sides. The interplay may produce, not just a solution to a problem, but a new set of rules for solving problems. That, of course, is the essence of creative interaction. The process of maintaining a current model has within it a set of changing or changeable rules for the processing and disposition of information.

The project meeting we have just described is representative of a broad class of human endeavor which may be described as creative informational activity. Let us differentiate this from another class which we will call informational housekeeping. The latter is what computers today are used for in the main; they process payroll checks, keep track of bank balances, calculate orbits of space vehicles, control repetitive machine processes, and maintain varieties of debit and credit lists. Mostly they have not been used to make coherent pictures of not well understood situations.

We referred earlier to a meeting in which the participants interacted with each other through a computer. That meeting was organized by Doug Engelbart of Stanford Research Institute and was actually a progress-review conference for a specific project. The subject under discussion was rich in detail and broad enough in scope that no one of the attendees, not even the host, could know all the information pertaining to this particular project.

Face to face through a computer

Tables were arranged to form a square work area with five on a side. The center of the area contained six television monitors which displayed the alphanumeric output of a computer located elsewhere in the building but remotely controlled from a keyboard and a set of electronic pointer controllers called “mice.” Any participant in the meeting could move a near-by mouse, and thus control the movements of a tracking pointer on the TV screen for all other participants to see.

Each person working on the project had prepared a topical outline of his particular presentation for the meeting, and his outline appeared on the screens as he talked–providing a broad view of his own model. Many of the outline statements contained the names of particular reference files which the speaker could recall from the computer to appear in detail on the screens, for, from the beginning of the project, its participants had put their work into the computer system’s files.

So the meeting began much like any other meeting in the sense that there was an overall list of agenda and that each speaker had brought with him (figuratively in his briefcase but really within the computer) the material he would be talking about.

The computer system was a significant aid in exploring the depth and breadth of the material. More detailed information could be displayed when facts had to be pinpointed; more global information could be displayed to answer questions of relevance and interrelationship. A future version of this system will make it possible for each participant, on his own TV screen, to thumb through the speaker’s files as the speaker talks–and thus check out incidental questions without interrupting the presentation for substantiation.

Obviously, collections of primary data can get too large to digest. There comes a time when the complexity of a communications process exceeds the available resources and the capability to cope with it; and at that point one has to simplify and draw conclusions.

It is frightening to realize how early and drastically one does simp1ify, how prematurely one does conclude, even when the stakes are high and when the transmission facilities and information resources are extraordinary. Deep modeling to communicate–to understand–requires a huge investment. Perhaps even governments cannot afford it yet.

But someday governments may not be able not to afford it. For, while we have been talking about the communicant ion process as a cooperative modeling effort in a mutual environment, there is also an aspect of communication with or about an uncooperative opponent. As nearly as we can judge from reports of recent international crises, out of the hundreds of alternatives that confronted the decision makers at each decision point or ply in the “game,” on the average only a few, and never more than a few dozen could be considered, and only a few branches of the game could be explored deeper than two or three such plies before action had to be taken. Each side was busy trying to model what the other side might be up to–but modeling takes time, and the pressure of events forces simplification even when it is dangerous.

Whether we attempt to communicate across a division of interests, or whether we engage in a cooperative effort, it is clear that we need to be able to model faster and to greater depth. The importance of improving decision-making processes–not only in government, but throughout business and the professions–is so great as to warrant every effort.

The computer–switch or interactor?

As we see it, group decision-making is simply the active, executive, effect-producing aspect of the kind of communication we are discussing. We have commented that one must oversimplify. We have tried to say why one must oversimplify. But we should not oversimplify the main point of this article. We can say with genuine and strong conviction that a particular form of digital computer organization, with its programs and its data, constitutes the dynamic, moldable medium that can revolutionize the art of modeling and that in so doing can improve the effectiveness of communication among people so much as perhaps to revolutionize that also.

But we must associate with that statement at once the qualification that the computer alone can make no contribution that will help us, and that the computer with the programs and the data that it has today can do little more than suggest a direction and provide a few germinal examples. Emphatically we do not say: “Buy a computer and your communication problems will be solved.”

What we do say is that we, together with many colleagues who have had the experience of working on-line and interactively with computers, have already sensed more responsiveness and facilitation and “power” than we had hoped for, considering the inappropriateness of present machines and the primitiveness of their software. Many of us are therefore confident (some of us to the point of religious zeal) that truly significant achievements, which will markedly improve our effectiveness in communication, now are on the horizon.

Many communications engineers, too, are presently excited about the application of digital computers to communication. However, the function they want computers to implement is the switching function. Computers will either switch the communication lines, connecting them together in required configurations, or switch (the technical term is “store and forward”) messages.

The switching function is important but it is not the one we have in mind when we say that the computer can revolutionize communication. We are stressing the modeling function, not the switching function. Until now, the communications engineer has not felt it within his province to facilitate the modeling function, to make an interactive, cooperative modeling facility. Information transmission and information processing have always been carried out separately and have become separately institutionalized. There are strong intellectual and social benefits to be realized by the melding of these two technologies. There are also, however, powerful legal and administrative obstacles in the way of any such melding.

Distributed intellectual resources

We have seen the beginnings of communication through a computer–communication among people at consoles located in the same room or on the same university campus or even at distantly separated laboratories of the same research and development organization. This kind of communication–through a single multiaccess computer with the aid of telephone lines–is beginning to foster cooperation and promote coherence more effectively than do present arrangements for sharing computer programs by exchanging magnetic tapes by messenger or mail. Computer programs are very important because they transcend mere “data”–they include procedures and processes for structuring and manipulating data. These are the main resources we can now concentrate and share with the aid of the tools and techniques of computers and communication, but they are only a part of the whole that we can learn to concentrate and share. The whole includes raw data, digested data, data about the location of data–and documents–and most especially models.

To appreciate the import ante the new computer-aided communication can have, one must consider the dynamics of “critical mass,” as it applies to cooperation in creative endeavor. Take any problem worthy of the name, and you find only a few people who can contribute effectively to its solution. Those people must be brought into close intellectual partnership so that their ideas can come into contact with one another. But bring these people together physically in one place to form a team, and you have trouble, for the most creative people are often not the best team players, and there are not enough top positions in a single organization to keep them all happy. Let them go their separate ways, and each creates his own empire, large or small, and devotes more time to the role of emperor than to the role of problem solver. The principals still get together at meetings. They still visit one another. But the time scale of their communication stretches out, and the correlations among mental models degenerate between meetings so that it may take a year to do a week’s communicating. There has to be some way of facilitating communicant ion among people wit bout bringing them together in one place.

A single multiaccess computer would fill the bill if expense were no object, but there is no way, with a single computer and individual communication lines to several geographically separated consoles, to avoid paying an unwarrantedly large bill for transmission. Part of the economic difficulty lies in our present communications system. When a computer is used interactively from a typewriter console, the signals transmitted between the console and the computer are intermittent and not very frequent. They do not require continuous access to a telephone channel; a good part of the time they do not even require the full information rate of such a channel. The difficulty is that the common carriers do not provide the kind of service one would like to have–a service that would let one have ad lib access to a channel for short intervals and not be charged when one is not using the channel.

It seems likely that a store-and-forward (i.e., store-for-just-a-moment-and-forward-right-away) message service would be best for this purpose, whereas the common carriers offer, instead, service that sets up a channel for one’s individual use for a period not shorter than one minute.

The problem is further complicated because interaction with a computer via a fast and flexible graphic display, which is for most purposes far superior to interaction through a slow-printing typewriter, requires markedly higher information rates. Not necessarily more information, but the same amount in faster bursts–more difficult to handle efficiently with the conventional common-carrier facilities.

It is perhaps not surprising that there are incompatibilities between the requirements of computer systems and the services supplied by the common carriers, for most of the common-carrier services were developed in support of voice rather than digital communication. Nevertheless, the incompatibilities are frustrating. It appears that the best and quickest way to overcome them-and to move forward the development of interactive communities of geographically separated people-is to set up an experimental network of multiaccess computers. Computers would concentrate and interleave the concurrent, intermittent messages of many users and their programs so as to utilize wide-band transmission channels continuously and efficiently, with marked reduction in overall cost.

Computer and information networks

The concept of computers connected to computers is not new. Computer manufacturers have successfully installed and maintained interconnected computers for some years now. But the computers in most instances are from families of machines compatible in both software and hardware, and they are in the same location. More important, the interconnected computers are not interactive, general-purpose, multiaccess machines of the type described by David [1] and Licklider [2]. Although more interactive multi-access computer systems are being delivered now, and although more groups plan to be using these systems within the next year, there are at present perhaps only as few as half a dozen interactive multiaccess computer communities .

These communities are socio-technical pioneers, in several ways out ahead of the rest of the computer world: What makes them so? First, some of their members are computer scientists and engineers who understand the concept of man-computer interaction and the technology of interactive multiaccess systems. Second, others of their members are creative people in other fields and disciplines who recognize the usefulness and who sense the impact of interactive multiaccess computing upon their work. Third, the communities have large multiaccess computers and have learned to use them. And, fourth, their efforts are regenerative.

In the half-dozen communities, the computer systems research and development and the development of substantive applications mutually support each other. They are producing large and growing resources of programs, data, and know-how. But we have seen only the beginning. There is much more programming and data collect ion–and much more learning how to cooperate–to be done before the full potential of the concept can be realized.

Obviously, multiaccess systems must be developed interactively. The systems being built must remain flexible and open-ended throughout the process of development, which is evolutionary.

Such systems cannot be developed in small ways on small machines. They require large, multiaccess computers, which are necessarily complex. Indeed, the sonic barrier in the development of such systems is complexity.

These new computer systems we are describing differ from other computer systems advertised with the same labels: interactive, time-sharing, multiaccess. They differ by having a greater degree of open-endedness, by rendering more services, and above all by providing facilities that foster a working sense of community among their users. The commercially available time-sharing services do not yet offer the power and flexibility of soft ware resources–the “general purposeness”–of the interactive multiaccess systems of the System Development Corporation in Santa Monica, the University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and Lexington, Mass.–which have been collectively serving about a thousand people for several years.

The thousand people include many of the leaders of the ongoing revolution in the computer world. For over a year they have been preparing for the transition to a radically new organization of hardware and software, designed to support many more simultaneous users than the current systems, and to offer them–through new languages, new file-handling systems, and new graphic displays–the fast, smooth interaction required for truly effective man-computer partnership.

Experience has shown the importance of making the response time short and the conversation free and easy. We think those attributes will be almost as important for a network of computers as for a single computer.

Today the on-line communities are separated from one another functionally as well as geographically. Each member can look only to the processing, storage and software capability of the facility upon which his community is centered. But now the move is on to interconnect the separate communities and thereby transform them into, let us call it, a supercommunity. The hope is that interconnection will make available to all the members of all the communities the programs and data resources of the entire supercommunity. First, let us indicate how these communities can be interconnected; then we shall describe one hypothetical person’s interaction with this network, of interconnected computers.

Message processing

The hardware of a multiaccess computer system includes one or more central processors, several kinds of memory–core, disks, drums, and tapes–and many consoles for the simultaneous on-line users. Different users can work simultaneously on diverse tasks. The software of such a system includes supervisory programs (which control the whole operation), system programs for interpretation of the user’s commands, the handling of his files, and graphical or alphanumeric display of information to him (which permit people not skilled in the machine’s language to use the system effectively), and programs and data created by the users themselves. The collection of people, hardware, and software–the multiaccess computer together with its local community of users–will become a node in a geographically distributed computer network. Let us assume for a moment that such a network has been formed.

For each node there is a small, general-purpose computer which we shall call a “message processor.” The message processors of all the nodes are interconnected to form a fast store-and-forward network. The large multi-access computer at each node is connected directly to the message processor there. Through the network of message processors, therefore, all the large computers can communicate with one another. And through them, all the members of the supercommunity can communicate–with other people, with programs, with data, or with selected combinations of those resources. The message processors, being all alike, introduce an element of uniformity into an otherwise grossly non-uniform situation, for they facilitate both hardware and software compatibility among diverse and poorly compatible computers. The links among the message processors are transmission and high-speed digital switching facilities provided by common carrier. This allows the linking of the message processors to be reconfigured in response to demand.

A message can be thought of as a short sequence of “bits” flowing through the network from one multiaccess computer to another. It consists of two types of information: control and data. Control information guides the transmission of data from source to destination. In present transmission systems, errors are too frequent for many computer applications. However, through the use of error detection and correction or retransmission procedures in the message processors, messages can be delivered to their destinations intact even though many of their “bits” were mutilated at one point or another along the way. In short, the message processors function in the system as traffic directors, controllers, and correctors.

Today, programs created at one installation on a given manufacturer’s computer are generally not of much value to users of a different manufacturer’s computer at another installation. After learning (with difficulty) of a distant program’s existence, one has to get it, understand it, and recode it for his own computer. The cost is comparable to the cost of preparing a new program from scratch, which is, in fact, what most programmers usually do. On a national scale, the annual cost is enormous. Within a network of interactive, multiaccess computer systems, on the other hand, a person at one node will have access to programs running at other nodes, even though those programs were written in different languages for different computers.

The feasibility of using programs at remote locations has been shown by the successful linking of the AN/FSQ-32 computer at Systems Development Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif., with the TX-2 computer across the continent at the Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Mass. A person at a TX-2 graphic console can make use of a unique list-processing program at SDC, which would be prohibitively expensive to translate for use on the TX-2. A network of 14 such diverse computers, all of which will be capable of sharing one another’s resources, is now being planned by the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, and its contractors.

The system’s way of managing data is crucial to the user who works in interaction with many other people. It should put generally useful data, if not subject to control of access, into public files. Each user, however, should have complete control over his personal files. He should define and distribute the “keys” to each such file, exercising his option to exclude all others from any kind of access to it; or to permit anyone to “read” but not modify or execute it; or to permit selected individuals or groups to execute but not read it; and so on-with as much detailed specification or as much aggregation as he likes. The system should provide for group and organizational files within its overall information base.

At least one of the new multiaccess systems will exhibit such features. In several of the research centers we have mentioned, security and privacy of information are subjects of active concern; they are beginning to get the attention they deserve.

In a multiaccess system, the number of consoles permitted to use the computer simultaneously depends upon the load placed on the computer by the users’ jobs, and may be varied automatically as the load changes. Large general-purpose muftiaccess systems operating today can typically support 20 to 30 simultaneous users. Some of these users may work with low-level “assembly” languages while others use higher-level “compiler” or “interpreter” languages. Concurrently, others may use data management and graphical systems. And so on.

But back to our hypothetical user. He seats himself at his console, which may be a terminal keyboard plus a relatively slow printer, a sophisticated graphical console, or any one of several intermediate devices. He dials his local computer and “logs in” by presenting his name, problem number, and password to the monitor program. He calls for either a public program, one of his own programs, or a colleague’s program that he has permission to use. The monitor links him to it, and he then communicates with that program.

When the user (or the program) needs service from a program at another node in the network, he (or it) requests the service by specifying the location of the appropriate computer and the identity of the program required. If necessary, he uses computerized directories to determine those data. The request is translated by one or more of the message processors into the precise language required by the remote computer’s monitor. Now the user (or his local program) and the remote program can interchange information. When the information transfer is complete, the user (or his local program) dismisses the remote computer, again with the aid of the message processors. In a commercial system, the remote processor would at this point record cost information for use in billing.

Who can afford it?

The mention of billing brings up an important matter. Computers and long-distance calls have “expensive” images. One of the standard reactions to the idea of “on-line communities” is: “It sounds great, but who can afford it?”

In considering that question, let us do a little arithmetic. The main elements of the cost of computer-facilitated communication, over and above the salaries of the communicators, are the cost of the consoles, processing, storage, transmission, and supporting software. In each category, there is a wide range of possible costs, depending in part upon the sophistication of the equipment, programs, or services employed and in part upon whether they are custom-made or mass-produced.

Making rough estimates of the hourly component costs per user, we arrived at the following: $1 for a console, $5 for one man’s share of the services of a processor, 70 cents for storage, $3 for transmission via line leased from a common carrier, and $1 for software support-a total cost of just less than $11 per communicator hour.

The only obviously untenable assumption underlying that result, we believe, is the assumption that one’s console and the personal files would be used 160 hours per month. All the other items are assumed to be shared with others, and experience indicates that time-sharing leads on the average to somewhat greater utilization than the 160 hours per month that we assumed, Note, however, that the console and the personal files are items used also in individual problem solving and decision making. Surely those activities, taken together with communication, would occupy at least 25% of the working hours of the on-line executive, scientist or engineer. If we cut the duty factor of the console and files to one quarter of 160 hours per month, the estimated total cost comes to $16 per hour.

Let us assume that our $16/hr interactive computer link is set up between Boston, Mass., and Washington, D.C. Is $16/hr affordable? Compare it first with the cost of ordinary telephone communication: Even if you take advantage of the lower charge per minute for long calls, it is less than the daytime direct-dial station-to-station toll. Compare it with the cost of travel: If one flies from Boston to Washington in the morning and back in the evening, he can have eight working hours in the capital city in return for about $64 in air and taxi fares plus the spending of four of his early morning and evening hours en route. If those four hours are worth $16 each, then the bill for the eight hours in Washington is $128-again $16 per hour. Or look at it still another way: If computer-aided communication doubled the effectiveness of a man paid $16 per hour then, according to our estimate, it would be worth what it cost if it could be bought right now. Thus we have some basis for arguing that computer-aided communication is economically feasible. But we must admit that the figure of $16 per hour sounds high, and we do not want to let our discussion depend upon it.

Fortunately, we do not have to, for the system we envision cannot be bought at this moment. The time scale provides a basis for genuine optimism about the cost picture. It will take two years, at least, to bring the first interactive computer networks up to a significant level of experimental activity. Operational systems might reach critical size in as little as six years if everyone got onto the bandwagon, but there is little point in making cost estimates for a nearer date. So let us take six years as the target.

In the computer field, the cost of a unit of processing and the cost of a unit of storage have been dropping for two decades at the rate of 50% or more every two years. In six years, there is time for at least three such drops, which cut a dollar down to 12 1/2 cents. Three halvings would take the cost of processing, now $5 per hour on our assumptions, down to less than 65 cents per hour.

Such advances in capability, accompanied by reduction in cost, lead us to expect that computer facilitation will be affordable before many people are ready to take advantage of it. The only areas that cause us concern are consoles and transmission.

In the console field, there is plenty of competition; many firms have entered the console sweepstakes, and more are entering every month. Lack of competition is not the problem. The problem is the problem of the chicken and the egg–in the factory and in the market. If a few companies would take the plunge into mass manufacture, then the cost of a satisfactory console would drop enough to open up a mass market. If large on-line communities were already in being, their mass market would attract mass manufacture. But at present there is neither mass manufacture nor a mass market, and consequently there is no low-cost console suitable for interactive on-line communication.

In the field of transmission, the difficulty may be lack of competition. At any rate, the cost of transmission is not falling nearly as fast as the cost of processing and storage. Nor is it falling nearly as fast as we think it should fall. Even the advent of satellites has affected the cost picture by less than a factor of two. That fact does not cause immediate distress because (unless the distance is very great) transmission cost is not now the dominant cost. But, at the rate things are going, in six years it will be the dominant cost. That prospect concerns us greatly and is the strongest damper to our hopes for near-term realization of operationally significant interactive networks and significant on-line communities.

On-line interactive communities

But let us be optimistic. What will on-line interactive communities be like? In most fields they will consist of geographically separated members, sometimes grouped in small clusters and sometimes working individually. They will be communities not of common location, but of common interest . In each field, the overall community of interest will be large enough to support a comprehensive system of field-oriented programs and data.

In each geographical sector, the total number of users–summed over all the fields of interest–will be large enough to support extensive general-purpose information processing and storage facilities. All of these will be interconnected by telecommunications channels. The whole will constitute a labile network of networks–ever-changing in both content and configuration.

What will go on inside? Eventually, every informational transaction of sufficient consequence to warrant the cost. Each secretary’s typewriter, each data-gathering instrument, conceivably each dictation microphone, will feed into the network.

You will not send a letter or a telegram; you will simply identify the people whose files should be linked to yours and the parts to which they should be linked–and perhaps specify a coefficient of urgency. You will seldom make a telephone call; you will ask the network to link your consoles together.

You will seldom make a purely business trip, because linking consoles will be so much more efficient. When you do visit another person with the object of intellectual communication, you and he will sit at a two-place console and interact as much through it as face to face. If our extrapolation from Doug Engelbart’s meeting proves correct, you will spend much more time in computer-facilitated teleconferences and much less en route to meetings.

A very important part of each man’s interaction with his on-line community will be mediated by his OLIVER. The acronym OLIVER honors Oliver Selfridge, originator of the concept. An OLIVER is, or will be when there is one, an “on-line interactive vicarious expediter and responder,” a complex of computer programs and data that resides within the network and acts on behalf of its principal, taking care of many minor matters that do not require his personal attention and buffering him from the demanding world. “You are describing a secretary,” you will say. But no! Secretaries will have OLIVERS.

At your command, your OLIVER will take notes (or refrain from taking notes) on what you do, what you read, what you buy and where you buy it. It will know who your friends are, your mere acquaintances. It will know your value structure, who is prestigious in your eyes, for whom you will do what with what priority, and who can have access to which of your personal files. It will know your organization’s rules pertaining to proprietary information and the government’s rules relating to security classification.

Some parts of your OLIVER program will be common with parts of other people’s OLIVERS; other parts will be custom-made for you, or by you, or will have developed idiosyncrasies through “learning” based on its experience in your service.

Available within the network will be functions and services to which you subscribe on a regular basis and others that you call for when you need them. In the former group will be investment guidance, tax counseling, selective dissemination of information in your field of specialization, announcement of cultural, sport, and entertainment events that fit your interests, etc. In the latter group will be dictionaries, encyclopedias, indexes, catalogues, editing programs, teaching programs, testing programs, programming systems, data bases, and-most important-communication, display, and modeling programs.

All these will be-at some late date in the history of networking- systematized and coherent; you will be able to get along in one basic language up to the point at which you choose a specialized language for its power or terseness.

When people do their informational work “at the console” and “through the network,” telecommunication will be as natural an extension of individual work as face-to-face communication is now. The impact of that fact, and of the marked facilitation of the communicative process, will be very great–both on the individual and on society.

First, life will be happier for the on-line individual because the people with whom one interacts most strongly will be selected more by commonality of interests and goals than by accidents of proximity. Second, communication will be more effective and productive, and therefore more enjoyable. Third, much communication and interaction will be with programs and programmed models, which will be (a) highly responsive, (b) supplementary to one’s own capabilities, rather than competitive, and (c) capable of representing progressively more complex ideas without necessarily displaying all the levels of their structure at the same time-and which will therefore be both challenging and rewarding. And, fourth, there will be plenty of opportunity for everyone (who can afford a console) to find his calling, for the whole world of information, with all its fields and disciplines, will be open to him-with programs ready to guide him or to help him explore.

For the society, the impact will be good or bad, depending mainly on the question: Will “to be on line” be a privilege or a right? If only a favored segment of the population gets a chance to enjoy the advantage of “intelligence amplification,” the network may exaggerate the discontinuity in the spectrum of intellectual opportunity.

On the other hand, if the network idea should prove to do for education what a few have envisioned in hope, if not in concrete detailed plan, and if all minds should prove to be responsive, surely the boon to humankind would be beyond measure.

Unemployment would disappear from the face of the earth forever, for consider the magnitude of the task of adapting the network’s software to all the new generations of computer, coming closer and closer upon the heels of their predecessors until the entire population of the world is caught up in an infinite crescendo of on-line interactive debugging.

Acknowledgments

Evan Herbert edited the article and acted as intermediary during its writing between Licklider in Boston and Taylor in Washington.

Roland B. Wilson drew the cartoons to accompany the original article.

[1] Edward E. David, Jr., “Sharing a Computer,” International Science and Technology , June, 1966.

[2] J. C. R. Licklider, “Man-Computer Partnership,” International Science and Technology , May, 1965.

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634 Communication Essay Topics & Examples

If you’re searching for communication essay topics or examples, you’ve stumbled on the right page!

Essays About Communication: Top 5 Examples and Prompts

Are you writing essays about communication? Check out our top essay examples and writing prompts to help you get started.

Communication is power and is critical to building a well-connected society. Communicating well is vital in working with people and shedding light on problems and solutions. Practical communication skills can help build relationships.

If you’re writing an essay on communication and are having a hard time choosing a topic to focus on, here is our round-up of the best essay examples to get you started:

1. The Benefits of Communication and Teamwork by Karenina Loayza

2. it’s time to tune in: why listening is the real key to communication by kate murphy, 3. a love language spoken with hands by ross showalter, 4. the role of body language in communication by ashley tulio, 5. the power of storytelling in marketing by dylan jacob, 1. how-to develop communication skills, 2. how-to write an inspiring speech, 3. should all leaders be good communicators, 4. theories of mass communication, 5. how are schools developing children’s communication skills, 6. communicating face-to-face vs. online , 7. marketing communications: what are they, 8. is communicating on social media effective, 9. is it possible to communicate effectively on virtual workplace platforms, 10. how-to communicate in the workplace.

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“In one task, we were blindfolded and had to describe a set of irregular pieces. With varying degrees of English and different experiences of the world, it was like explaining an elephant to an alien.”

Loayza narrates an exercise in class where they have to describe surrounding objects as accurately as possible to keep others from stumbling on them. The writer said the exercise demonstrated effectively the need for good communication skills for teams to succeed.

“Schools and universities have courses in debate, rhetoric and elocution, but rarely classes that teach listening. You can get a doctorate in speech communication and join Toastmasters International to perfect your speaking skills, but who strives for excellence in listening?”

Murphy muses on a world that glorifies the speakers but leaves no room for the listeners like her. She points out how social media has created a generation that prefers interacting behind the screen and filtering out opinions that do not resonate with theirs. Instead, Murphy emphasizes listening as a foundation for better human relations and offers solutions for how others can develop their listening for successful communication.

“Will showed me that not everyone makes promises they don’t intend to fulfil. I don’t have to invest in someone who promises an action they’ll never do. Relationships only move forward once the work of communication begins.”

Showalter, a deaf man, laments how non-deaf ex-lovers have promised to learn sign language to better communicate with him – only to see these promises broken. Then, one morning, a remarkable man in his life sends a video message reviving hopes for Showalter and redefines his standard in relationships for the better.

“Non-verbal communication can affect our words as it can reiterate our message, contradict our words, reinforce our statement, substitute the meaning of what we are trying to say, and complement what we are trying to say. Body language is something that is usually natural and is often done instinctively rather than consciously.”

Tulio, a communications specialist, stresses the importance of using body language for expression. She provides tips on maximizing gestures and body movement to convey emotions in person and through videoconferencing.

“In marketing, storytelling provides an avenue to connect to consumers unlike any other. Brands are empowered to share and sell their values and personality in a form that feels less like advertising and more like a concerted effort to strengthen relationships with customers.

The author cites the viewpoints of a business school professor who explains how storytelling can shape the world’s perception of a brand. Finally, the author outlines the vital elements that make an exciting story capable of connecting with an audience and effecting action among consumers.

10 Writing Prompts On essays about communication

To further expand your horizon on the subject, you can work around our list of prompts that are interesting and relevant to date:

essays about communication: How-to develop communication skills

You can narrow down this essay to target employees, students, aspiring leaders, or those who want to improve their conversation skills. First, list down recommendations such as expanding their vocabulary and listening. Then, explain how they can incorporate this into their daily routine.

Writing a speech that strikes a chord requires extra work in developing empathy and understanding the audience. Next, you can focus on providing recommendations for your essay, such as putting in a personal touch and linking this story to the broader subject. Make sure you also offer simple writing tips such as using the active voice as much as possible, keeping sentences short, and keeping the tone conversational.

Cite research studies that detail why effective communication is a critical skill that makes a leader. Then, write about the organizational pitfalls of poor communication. Later, leaders who can speak engagingly and listen attentively to their team members can address these pitfalls.

Communication theory is the study of processes in sending and receiving information. Discuss the four main theories of mass communication: the Authoritarian Theory, the Libertarian Theory, the Soviet-Communist Theory, and the Social-Responsibility Theory. Explain each one. Explain how each remains relevant in understanding modern communication processes.

Interview schools within your community and learn about their language curriculum and other efforts to empower children to communicate well. You can also interview child development experts. Find out the biggest challenges in helping children improve how they express their thoughts and ideas. Then, find out what schools and parents are doing to address them.

While you’d hear many people expressing a preference for face-to-face meetings, there are undoubtedly benefits to online meetings, which some usually dismiss. Weigh in on the pros and cons of in-person and online meetings, especially in the current scenario of an ongoing pandemic.

What are the new marketing channels marketers are leveraging to reach their audience? Several surveys and studies show where most marketing campaigns allocate their budgets. One example is video content.

An interesting angle would also involve looking at epic brand fails. Cite two or more cases, find a communication mishap common between them and provide what lessons can today’s brands learn from these epic fails.

From interacting with loved ones and finding someone to date and love, social media has dramatically changed our ways of communication. It might be great to interview the elders who have experienced communicating through snail mail. Dive into their nostalgia and discover how they compare the experience of letter writing against instant chatting through mobile apps.

Several apps today aim to transform workplaces to be more connected for interaction and communication. First, list down the top apps most used in the corporate world and discuss why these communication forms are preferred over email. Then, delve into the drawbacks and aspects of the apps that need improvements according to what business users say.

Recent studies show that employees quit their jobs when they feel unable to talk about their needs in the workplace. Research the communication culture in the top companies in a specific field. How are they engaging with their employees? How are they driving conversations toward critical concerns?

TIP: You don’t have to write an extended essay. Here is a guide to writing a concise and organized five-paragraph essay.

For more help with writing, check out our best essay writing tips for a stress-free writing process.

Technology and Communication – IELTS Writing Task 2

Updated On Oct 27, 2021

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Sample essay, band 9 sample essay.

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Many people think modern communication technology is having some negative effects on social relationships. Do you agree or disagree?

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Opinion essay

Introduction

Paraphrase the topic of the essay (The impacts of digital communication on human relationships have long been a topic of controversy).

Give an insight into your viewpoint (From my perspective, modern means of communication may sabotage one’s relationships with other people).

Paragraph 1- Nowadays, various features such as built-in cameras and interactive games have been added to the mobile phone, making it multifunctional and thus even more popular. However, I believe the omnipresence of mobile phones in particular, or digital communication tools in general, often interferes with the bonding time that people share and thus has a negative influence on interpersonal relationships.

Paragraph 2- Some people use mobile phones mainly for virtual social networks, and notifications and messages from these sites may prevent them from having intimate conversations with their loved ones.

Conclude the topic by summing up your views and the extract of the essay.

The impacts of digital communication on human relationships have long been a topic of controversy. From my perspective, modern means of communication may sabotage one’s relationships with other people.

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The most typical example of today’s communication technology is the mobile phone. Originally designed to provide people with instant access to telecommunication, it has become indispensable for most people in modern society. Nowadays, various features such as built-in cameras and interactive games have been added to the mobile phone, making it multifunctional and thus even more popular. However, I believe the omnipresence of mobile phones in particular, or digital communication tools in general, often interferes with the bonding time that people share and thus has a negative influence on interpersonal relationships. There is compelling evidence for my belief. If people use mobile phones for work purposes, business calls may disrupt any real-life conversations they have. This is the case for millions of working people who may have overlooked the importance of having smooth and uninterrupted conversations with other people. They may be unaware that relationships are at risk of eroding when people spend less quality time with each other. Also, if people use mobile phones to play games, the constant urge to complete game missions may disengage them from social gatherings. For example, many teenagers sacrifice real-life socialising time for mobile game playing time. In the long term, this would be likely to cause friends to drift apart.

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Some people use mobile phones mainly for virtual social networks, and notifications and messages from these sites may prevent them from having intimate conversations with their loved ones. There are many real examples of couples on the verge of breaking up because one or both partners have grown overly attached to social network applications on mobile phones, and they find it hard to maintain a sense of intimacy.

Although most people use mobile phones for all personal as well as professional reasons and consequently, they need to pay constant attention to their phone, however, potentially isolating those in their company. In this way, mobile phones may dull real-life interactions and affect relationships as a result.

In brief, the constant distraction of modern communication devices such as mobile phones may cause the breakdown of numerous social relationships.

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Ever since the era of technology emerged, life has changed dramatically. Today where every second thing is being operated by digital contrivances, some ill effects have come floating by, as well. Generally, people put forth that the current digital scenario and communication devices and interfaces particularly have impeded and halted conventional interactions. I agree with this notion and shall be illustrating the same in the forthcoming paragraphs.

It is an inevitable truth that digitization has made our arduous lives extremely cosy and that it nearly ineluctable tangent that we all are on today. However, the impact it has had on social relationships are undeniably true. Family gatherings, outings and various other aspects of live communication have been trampled down upon with the uprising of online social networks. One to one discussion has been displaced by social media, the family time has been subjugated by facetime and webcams. Mobile phones have been the major disruptive cause in evicting out the person to person verbal communication. Owing to this sociability and amicability has been corroded off to substantial capacity.

Secondly, people while being there in an online medium and e-communication transmission mask their realities to a larger level where it is hard to discern as to what one person is gravely going through behind the lenses. Moreover, a sense of harmony and connectedness has been deeply lacerated as one can’t get through the emotional streamline of others as well as it is in the case of one to one conversation. In addition to that, work from home, online schooling and internet parties can never compare and become congruent to the essence of offline setup. The gist and feel of very communication without screen barriers have definitely been exacerbated by the day to day unstinted techno-growth. Due to this, the communication gaps, misconstruction, misconception and misunderstandings have been preponderant and therefore, the relations have turned rancorous. For instance, many times the people who tend to be at loggerheads, resolve and laugh out the grudges they had post figuring out how paltry the issue was that could have never had been aired had the communication was in an offline environment.

Though online communication tools are the need of the hour, the way it has obliterated and debilitated the lines of personal communication with a tinge of conversing effectively is indisputably true as well.

Therefore, in the conclusion, it could be stated that the layer of social harmony and personal belongingness has indeed been excruciated by the pillars and towers of online networking, where people communicate only when they are extremely in need of, thereby making them recluse and secluded.

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Smartphone Essay

500 words essay on smartphone.

Smartphones have become a very important form of communication these days. It is impossible for a rational person to deny the advantages of smartphones as they are devices suitable for a wide variety of tasks. Let us try to understand smartphones along with their benefits with this smartphone essay.

Smartphone Essay

Understanding the Smartphone

A smartphone is a mobile device that facilitates the combination of cellular and mobile computing functions into one single unit. Moreover, smartphones have stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems in comparison to feature phones.

The strong operating systems of smartphones make possible multimedia functionality, wider software, and the internet including web browsing. They also support core phone functions like text messaging and voice calls.

There are a number of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chips within a smartphone. Moreover, such chips include various sensors whose leveraging is possible by their software.

The marketing of early smartphones was primarily towards the enterprise market. Furthermore, the attempt of the smartphone manufacturers was to bridge the functionality of standalone personal digital assistant (PDA) devices along with support for cellular telephony. However, the early smartphones had problems of slow analogue cellular network, short battery life, and bulky size.

With the passage of time, experts were able to resolve these issues. Furthermore, this became possible with faster digital mobile data networks, miniaturization of MOS transistors down to sub-micron levels, and exponential scaling. Moreover, the development of more mature software platforms led to enhancement in the capability of smartphones.

Benefits of Smartphone

People can make use of smartphones to access the internet and find out information regarding almost anything. Furthermore, due to the portability of a smartphone, people can access the internet from any location, even while travelling.

Smartphones have greatly increased the rate of work. This is possible because smartphones facilitate a highly efficient and quick form of communication from anywhere. For example, a person can participate in an official business meeting, without wasting time, from the comfort of his home via a live video chat application of a smartphone.

Smartphones can also be of tremendous benefit to students in general. Furthermore, students can quickly resolve any issue related to studies by accessing the internet , using a calculator, reading a pdf file, or contacting a teacher. Most noteworthy, all of this is possible due to the smartphone.

People can get in touch with the larger global community by communicating and sharing their views via social media. Furthermore, this provides a suitable platform to express their views, conduct business with online transactions , or find new people or jobs. One can do all that from anywhere, thanks to the smartphone.

These were just a few benefits of smartphones. Overall, the total benefits of a smartphone are just too many to enumerate here. Most importantly, smartphones have made our lives more efficient as well as comfortable.

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Conclusion of Smartphone Essay

Smartphones have proven to be a revolution for human society. Furthermore, they have made the whole world united like never before. In spite of its demerits, there is no doubt that the smartphone is a tremendous blessing to mankind and it will continue to play a major role in its development.

FAQs For Smartphone Essay

Question 1: How is a smartphone different from a feature phone?

Answer 1: Smartphones have stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems when compared to feature phones. Furthermore, the smartphone can perform almost all computing functions that a feature phone can’t. The internet and camera capabilities of a feature phone are nowhere near as powerful as that of a smartphone.

Question 2: What is meant by a smartphone?

Answer 2: A smartphone refers to a handheld electronic device that facilitates a connection to a cellular network. Furthermore, smartphones let people access the internet, make phone calls, send text messages, along with a wide variety of functions that one can perform on a pc or a laptop. Overall, it is a fully functioning miniaturized computer.

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Essay on Mobile Phone for Students [100, 150, 250, 400 Words]

Essay on Mobile Phone: Mobile Phone is a wonderful gift of science. In this article, you are going to learn to write an essay on Mobile Phone in English (100, 150, 250 and 400 Words). So, let’s get started.

Table of Contents

Essay on Mobile Phone: 100 Words

The mobile phone is one of the greatest gifts of modern science. It is also called cell phone or smart phone. It is a great medium of communication. In earlier times mobile phones were used only for communication. But now-a-days a mobile phone is used as an entertainment device. We can use it for watching videos, listening to music, capturing pictures, web browsing, calculating, navigating and many more purposes.

The mobile phone has many advantages but we should use it in moderation. Excessive use of mobile phones can affect our physical and mental health. Students often misuse it and their study is affected badly. We should use our mobile phones very wisely.

Mobile Phone Essay: 150 Words

The mobile phone is a miracle of science. From a minor student to an ordinary Worker, everyone possesses a cell phone. Indeed, this is a very popular item today. It is truly, a mark of modern living, a part of the modern life-style. Of course, its usefulness is undeniable. Now a man can have communication anywhere, anytime to anyone sitting thousands of kilometers from him.

Today it is not only a communication device. It can be used for a number of purposes like online ticket booking, navigation, playing video games, taking pictures, recording videos, web browsing, video calling etc. In fact, now we use mobile phone for taking online classes. Hence it is called a Smart Phone. At the same time, the excessive craze for this is not desirable and may even prove dangerous. Mobile phone is to be taken as an utility service, and not as a show-piece.

Also Read: Paragraph on Computer in English

Essay on Mobile Phone: 250 Words

A mobile phone or cell phone is a hand-held portable radiophone that uses the cellular or satellite network for voice or data communication. Unlike landline phones, which are fixed, mobile phones can be easily carried, and one can contact a person anywhere whether at home, on the bus, in street, or in a meeting. Apart from talking, it can be used for sending SMS, e-mail and for taking photos and videos.

High-end mobiles act as mini computers, offering services like internet, diary, music, iPod, calculator, alarm clock, etc. It is extremely useful in emergencies. But there is a tendency to abuse it. To many, it is an Addiction rather than a necessity. A cell phone ringing in an auditorium is most annoying. Using a mobile phone while driving a car or a motorbike and crossing a road or a railway track had led to many accidents.

Teleshopping is a great nuisance. Privacy is often violated, as most mobile users are unaware that they could be photographed or tracked. Terrorists use this gadget to trigger bombs and achieve their ends. Mobiles can also cause health hazards. The radiations from mobiles may cause injury to the brain. Cellphones on vibration mode put in front pocket may damage the heartbeat system. With all its advantages, what is, therefore, needed is moderation in the use of mobile phones.

Also Read: Essay on Television in English

Essay on Mobile Phones: 400 Words

When telephone was first introduced in the world in the 1950s, people were keenly interested in it. As an easier way of communication, telephone has its own merit. Of late, the introduction of mobiles makes an easy access to communication. It is in fact inevitable in the present day of hurry and business. People have warmly accepted mobiles as the blessing of science. There is little doubt that without the use of mobiles none is nowadays able to lead one’s life quite normally. One is capable of communicating with people, staying far away very quickly. Thus many a problem can be well- solved by way of using these mobiles.

But everything has its merit and demerit. As science is a bane as well as a boon, mobiles are to some extent to be cursed. People, especially the young generation, have been abusing mobiles. They not only chat in an unexpected way but also indulge themselves in leading immoral life by abusing mobiles. Apart from this, several mercenary companies exploit the advantage of mobiles to meet their selfish ends. They do business through mobiles. As a result, young people have been misguided. To use mobiles is for them to be up to date. They avail themselves of the opportunity of the internet connection in their mobiles and do whatever they like to do. Obscene video clippings and some other versions of immoral entertainment are now available in mobiles. Therefore, the students have now tremendous fascination for the mobiles. Consequently, instead of studying, concentrate on using mobiles for sheer fun.

Another demerit is that because of the excessive use of the mobiles different companies plunge themselves into doing profitable business. Consequently, numerous towers have been erected for the network of mobiles. It is well known that a particular wave which is responsible for the mobile network does harm to the ecological balance of the environment. It is evident in the pale colors of the trees and fruits adjacent to the mobile towers.

Thus, it is the time to be conscious of the abuse of the mobiles. The concerned authority should take immediate steps to stop immoral business which is proliferating in abusing mobiles. All should remember that the sole purpose of mobile is to communicate. Entertainment may be available in the network of mobiles. But there should be no immoral design. Above all, the government should restrict the use of mobiles, so much so that anti-social activities may not be done through mobiles.

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communication

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Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research - A Theoretical Review of Communication Process, Barriers to Communication and Importance of Communication.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Meaning and Communication
Social Science LibreTexts - An Introduction to Communication Theory
University of Minnesota Libraries - What is Communication?
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - Communication
Pressbooks - Introduction to Communication
Academia - The Cummunication Process is What is Communication
Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems - History of Cybernetics
communication - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
communication - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
Table Of Contents

communication , the exchange of meanings between individuals through a common system of symbols.

This article treats the functions, types, and psychology of communication. For a treatment of animal communication , see animal behaviour . For further treatment of the basic components and techniques of human communication, see language ; speech ; writing . For technological aspects, including communications devices and information systems, see broadcasting ; dictionary ; encyclopaedia ; information processing ; information theory ; library ; printing ; publishing, history of ; telecommunications media ; telecommunications network ; telecommunications system .

The subject of communication has concerned scholars since the time of ancient Greece . Until modern times, however, the topic was usually subsumed under other disciplines and taken for granted as a natural process inherent to each. In 1928 the English literary critic and author I.A. Richards offered one of the first—and in some ways still the best—definitions of communication as a discrete aspect of human enterprise:

Communication takes place when one mind so acts upon its environment that another mind is influenced, and in that other mind an experience occurs which is like the experience in the first mind, and is caused in part by that experience.

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Richards’s definition is both general and rough, but its application to nearly all kinds of communication—including those between humans and animals (but excluding machines)—separated the contents of messages from the processes in human affairs by which these messages are transmitted. More recently, questions have been raised concerning the adequacy of any single definition of the term communication as it is currently employed. The American psychiatrist and scholar Jurgen Ruesch identified 40 varieties of disciplinary approaches to the subject, including architectural, anthropological, psychological, political, and many other interpretations of the apparently simple interaction described by Richards. In total, if such informal communications as sexual attraction and play behaviour are included, there exist at least 50 modes of interpersonal communication that draw upon dozens of discrete intellectual disciplines and analytic approaches. Communication may therefore be analyzed in at least 50 different ways.

Interest in communication has been stimulated by advances in science and technology, which, by their nature, have called attention to humans as communicating creatures. Among the first and most dramatic examples of the inventions resulting from technological ingenuity were the telegraph and telephone, followed by others like wireless radio and telephoto devices. The development of popular newspapers and periodicals, broadcasting, motion pictures, and television led to institutional and cultural innovations that permitted efficient and rapid communication between a few individuals and large populations; these media have been responsible for the rise and social power of the new phenomenon of mass communication . ( See also information theory ; information processing ; telecommunication system .)

Since roughly 1920 the growth and apparent influence of communications technology have attracted the attention of many specialists who have attempted to isolate communication as a specific facet of their particular interest. Psychologists , in their studies of behaviour and mind, have evolved concepts of communication useful to their investigations as well as to certain forms of therapy. Social scientists have identified various forms of communication by which myths , styles of living, mores, and traditions are passed either from generation to generation or from one segment of society to another. Political scientists and economists have recognized that communication of many types lies at the heart of the regularities in the social order. Under the impetus of new technology—particularly high-speed computers—mathematicians and engineers have tried to quantify and measure components of communicated information and to develop methods for translating various types of messages into quantities or amounts amenable to both their procedures and instruments. Numerous and differently phrased questions have been posed by artists, architects, artisans, writers, and others concerning the overall influences of various types of communication. Many researchers, working within the relevant concerns of their disciplines, have also sought possible theories or laws of cause and effect to explain the ways in which human dispositions are affected by certain kinds of communication under certain circumstances, and the reasons for the change.

In the 1960s a Canadian educator, Marshall McLuhan , drew the threads of interest in the field of communication into a view that associated many contemporary psychological and sociological phenomena with the media employed in modern culture . McLuhan’s often repeated idea, “the medium is the message,” stimulated numerous filmmakers, photographers, artists, and others, who adopted McLuhan’s view that contemporary society had moved (or was moving) from a “print” culture to a “visual” one. The particular forms of greatest interest to McLuhan and his followers were those associated with the sophisticated technological instruments for which young people in particular display enthusiasm—namely, motion pictures, television, and sound recordings.

In the late 20th century the main focus of interest in communication drifted away from McLuhanism and began to centre on (1) the mass communication industries, the people who run them, and the effects they have upon their audiences, (2) persuasive communication and the use of technology to influence dispositions, (3) processes of interpersonal communication as mediators of information, (4) dynamics of verbal and nonverbal (and perhaps extrasensory) communication between individuals, (5) perception of different kinds of communications, (6) uses of communication technology for social and artistic purposes, including education in and out of school, and (7) development of relevant criticism for artistic endeavours employing modern communications technology.

In short, a communication expert may be oriented to any of a number of disciplines in a field of inquiry that has, as yet, neither drawn for itself a conclusive roster of subject matter nor agreed upon specific methodologies of analysis.

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Communication devices: pros and cons.

764 words | 3 page(s)

There have been many different ways that people have kept in touch over the years. These devices have came a long way from the days of waiting for weeks to receive information through a traditional letter. With the invention of the telephone, people became able to communicate immediately with one another in order to relay information faster than ever. The telephone has since evolved into the cellular phones which are more common now than traditional land line options. Both forms of phones have the same basic concept but differ greatly in the functions that are available. The comparisons and contrasts of the types of telephones available will help an individual choose which type of service is the best option for a given situation. The major areas where the two types of telephones show both similarities and differences are purpose, portability, and emergency services.

The purpose of both the land line phone and the cell phone is for communication. The rapid form of communication that is offered through the use of a telephone has become a necessity in modern society. Both styles operate well for this purpose. It is relatively simple to complete a call on either type of device. However, a cell phone offers the ability to text, talk, and communicate through social media websites. A land line phone only offers communication through talking. The cost of the service and the equipment of the land line is generally much cheaper so if talking is the key reason for having a telephone this would be the better choice. The reception for conversations is also generally much clearer on the land line option than it is on the cellular devices. Therefore, although the cell phone offers more ways to communicate, the land line offers a more consistent reception for telephone conversations.

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Portability is another area where land line telephones and cellular telephones begin with similarities and then differ greatly. For example, as land line phones are based at a residence or business and must be plugged directly into a phone outlet, the portability is minimum but there are cordless telephone options that extend the range on land line phones dramatically. However, the cellular device offers communication that is almost completely portable. Being able to carry the device wherever an individual goes is a key feature of the cell phone that makes it the best choice for many people. However, the cell phone must be in range of a cell tower signal. This means that there are many areas in which a cell phone will not work. Additionally, the cell phone is dependent on a battery supply which means the phone will only work for a short period without also being plugged into an outlet.

Finally, emergency service features are available on both the land line phone and the cellular phone but each operate best in different scenarios. Land lines are the best option during power outages as the phone system is generally still available. Calling 911 for emergency services gives the operator the option to search the address by the land line phone number and send the emergency personnel directly to the house even if the caller is unable to communicate for any reason. The cell phone offers the portability of being able to call from anywhere that an emergency takes place. For example, if there is a car accident, the cell phone gives the user immediate access to the emergency services. However, this is dependent on cellular signal, battery availability, and the ability of the user to speak to the operator as the cell phone is not linked to a direct address.

Based on the comparisons, both the land line option and the cellular phone option offer an ease of communication in terms of traditional conversations. Both offer the ability to speak directly to another individual with comparatively clear reception. Both types of phones offer a different levels of portability and both have features that would assist the user in case of an emergency situation. The differences between the two include the additional ways to communicate on the cellular phone, greater portability of the cellular phone, and the access to the emergency services. The comparison and contrasts of the two would suggest that an individual who stays close to home would benefit from a land line whereas an individual who travels a lot would be better off with a cell phone. However, as most individuals’ lives require a combination of home life and travel, and the emergency services vary greatly, it would be advisable for individuals to have both a land line and a cellular telephone.

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500 Words Essay on Communication Technology

Mobile Phones and Smartphones

Social Media and Email

The Importance of Communication Technology

Challenges and Safety

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Essay on Communication in 100, 200 and 300 Words: The Essence of Survival

Essay on Communication in 100 Words

Essay on Communication in 200 Words

Essay on Communication in 300 Words

Shiva Tyagi

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6.10.2 Social media and communication (research essay)

English 102, April 2021

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Communication Devices: Advantages and Disadvantages Essay Example

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