Phenomenon of communication in 21st
century
The internet in many ways has shaped the way we receive information and giving our opinions. The internet by nature shares some characters. It is primarily visual and accompany with audio, it is virtual anonymity, physically distant, global, and interactive. However, when we are not looking at the person we are communicating with. We are more likely to exaggerate our emotions. When we write we feel our emotions more. Written form can lose authenticity. The truth is we don't face the people we talk to as much, maintaining eye contact, less reading, more information coming. We know how to use the technology, but do we know what we are looking at? Especially, the ongrowing generation is exposed to the medium at a younger age.
The progress of technology takes off rapidly from telegraph popular usage in 19th century to today's internet neutrality it has been only less then 200 years. Therefore, the underlying structure
around the technology does not seem to catch up with the innovation. For instance, we
have opportunity to intervene with social, political, environmental
issues. But on the other hand, problems like misunderstanding occurs more often with the incoming and outgoing speed of technology.
Growing up in the 90’s, I observed the takeoff of the technology trend.
I know what to do with a landline; I know what to say on the telephone,
if I don’t know, I tell them, I will call them back. I am not the same
through email or text. Regardless of how I deal with technology, email
is the most efficient way for communication according to the articles I
read lately in \cite{hyatt}. I have to keep up with the trend, and be familiar with new
tech. We all have similar situations with text messages. Because we
don’t hear the tone, we don’t know if the person is angry or there is a
typo. But it is getting harder and harder to talk on the phone. Because
the connection is not good, you are talking on top of each other;
because it is going to be choppy, and awkwardly laughing, talking is not
a clear way for communication. Why there are a clear guideline to when to use what channel for communication?
Another phonomenon on communication and the underlying reasons
which causes its breakdown, is a demonstration that we might have interpreted
what the information is. Visual is the primary information collecting point for
majority and it is a dominant sense people use to receive information, but we have problems and misunderstanding between the speaker’s
intention and the way it it is perceived and understood by others. The assumption I have is: we see differently from the beginning when we perceive it. Especially, visual is a dominant sense people use to receive information. Therefore, the first approach to misunderstanding between information is to understand how we visually perceive information.
Technology brought convenience to our daily life. With more convenience,
are we really more efficient, or we use the convenience to make extra
communication. Once we understand what we see, we have better chance to the role of technology plays in communication problems and have a better approach to the solution with the assistant of technology.
Can we establish trust and understanding from the
beginning? The understanding is drawn from cognitive psychology. The next section asks questions and provides researched answers. By understand the set of questions it can provide a general discussion of the
relation between visual perception and communication.