New Communication, New Technology One

¶ … New communication, new technology One of my older relatives has a very strange contraption in her attic: a typewriter. I say this is strange, because once upon a time it was a necessity for every college student. People would have to write term papers, line by line, page by page, with the keys clicking and clacking like the sound of an old newsroom in a movie. If they made a mistake, they would have to tear out the piece of paper and begin all over again.

The process was tedious: now, to communicate my thoughts I simply need to use a friendly computer keyboard that can delete any extraneous word or misspelling. But although much has been gained by the invention of the word processor, I also wonder if something has been lost. Writing before computers must have demanded much more focus and attention, and presumably every time the page was rewritten, it was slightly better.

The same is true for all innovations in technology: while there is a gain of speed, there is also a paradoxical loss of attention to detail. Of course, I do not want to turn back the hands of time. Not simply because I like the ease of typing on a keyboard -- although I do -- but also because I feel using a computer allows me to be more productive and to communicate with more people. People of my grandmother's generation had to write or type letters.

Now I can communicate with many friends, old and new, with a touch of a send button, or simply update my Facebook page. Truth be told, I doubt that I would 'keep in touch' with friends from junior high if I had to sit down and write them a letter. But with new technology, there seems to be no incentive not to keep in touch.

I have learned a great deal through this ease of communication: by keeping in touch with more people, I have learned about the travels of old friends to different parts of the country, read about them exploring new career opportunities in their majors and internships, and seen what life is like all over the world. However, I know that I am not 'close' friends with many of friends, even though I am in daily communication with them.

Some friends may only comment on my Facebook status update and never send me a personal message. I have never written a printed letter to even my dearest real life friends. This is another example of how, with speed and greater ease and access to knowledge, there is also a loss of attention to detail and careful, deliberate word choice.

Reading the letters of famous people who corresponded with one another in a history class, I couldn't help but wonder what contemporary emails will look like, as a record of history. Long ago, people wrote long, careful, considered documents to one another, with complete sentences, formal punctuation, and the letters contained a careful exposition of their thoughts. If they made a mistake, they had to cross it out -- or start a new page.

With an email, sometimes even to a professional colleague, people will send out a short, three-line note, often with no capitalization, and poor punctuation and spelling. No matter how easy it is to send an email, it seems too difficult to give such things much attention. I wonder if the overexposure to information, and the need to constantly keep in touch with our virtual 'friends' has made us respect language less. In communicating through text messaging, using shorthand is a necessity, not even laziness.

Our language seems poorer than that of previous generations, and I wonder if the way we think will also change -- we may be quicker and more tolerant of new ideas and new people, but we also do not take the time to look beneath the surface. Rewriting a paper or a letter forces the writer to probe what he or she has said and to contemplate word choice, nuance, and diction. The Internet has expanded the range, not just of personal connections, but also our sources of information.

In my grandfather's day, most people read one or two papers: a local paper and a national paper. They listened to one source of news on the television or radio. Even my mother can remember growing up with only a relatively few number of television channels. However, I can access newspaper articles all over the world. I don't need one or two magazine subscriptions because I can specifically select the articles that interest me, simply by Googling one or two keywords.

It seems like my access to knowledge is greater than anyone who ever lived before me in my family. But I cannot read everything that lies at my fingertips. Again, I ponder what is lost: I envy the sense of connection that previous generations felt when everyone read the same publications, and watched the same television shows in real time. Because there is so much information, I know that I probably skim things much faster rather than read things closely, with attention to detail, like I should.

The idea that with the introduction of new technology there is a gain of speed in communication, but there is also a paradoxical loss of accuracy and precision may seem strange to those who are salivating over the 'next new thing,'.