The Evolution of Communication
As I write this blog post, I am hiding in a little corner of the office. My phone is safety tucked away in my drawer and I have closed all other applications on my notebook. This is necessary because I am easily distracted, and under normal work conditions there would be a million bells, buzzes and whistles that go off every minute – the phone ringing, incoming text messages, instant messaging pop-ups, calendar notifications, TweetDeck chirping, my iMobster push alerts (yes, I am addicted to iMobster!)… oooh the list really does go on and on. I am not blessed with the ability to multi-task unlike some of my colleagues… so from now until this blog post is completed, I’m in my hermit-meditation mode. *Ooommmmm*
Ironically, it is all these bells, buzzes and whistles that I want to blog about – the evolution of communication. I am no histogram… ermm… historian or whatever you wanna call it (clearly not a linguist either), but I would imagine the earliest forms of long-distance communication were the beating of drums and smoke signals – pretty decent reach if you are within range, but the speed of delivery and ability to communicate details were limited. When the steam engine was invented, new opportunities for postal services came about, and Kevin Costner no longer had to ride his horse the entire distance to deliver mails. The written word coupled with postal services had great range, but the reach was limited. Morse code came along (which is an evolved smoke signal) and soon after that, the telephone. Then the radio, the TV, fax machines… the Internet and emails. Each method of communication is unique and has its own set of pros and cons. My fascination is not whether one medium will render another obsolete, but I like observing how communication in itself continues to evolve.
For personal social communication, I went from writing 4-page letters (to get maximum ROI for the stamps), to writing emails just 1-2 paragraphs long, to chatting on mIRC,… <lots of stuff happened in between… like breaking up on MSN> …to replying 1-liner messages on Facebook like “Beer is on me becoz j00 da man!” …and now, compressing what I have to say into 140 characters on Twitter, or sometimes not even producing any original content at all – I just retweet! Oh wait… if “LOL” is considered original content, then yes, I do that… e.g. “LOL RT @dog_ears …” I am slowly losing my ability to spell korectly.
Personally, I don’t think any particular communication medium is obsolete. It might have been replaced, but it isn’t obsolete as costs, accuracy, speed of delivery, reach, amount to communicate, location and demographics are all variables that need to be considered when delivering a message. Smoke signals for example are still being used in remote areas where there are no telecommunication services. Another example is my neighbour using a variation of morse code on the walls to tell me that my music is too loud. I may not know what they are saying, but I understand them loud and clear!
Anyway, to end this blog post, my Tech Team wants to send a message to one of our most loved clients, all the way in the US of A. They have supported us for many years and have been great clients. Smoke signals aren’t likely to work in this case, so…
