Communication is a very important aspect of an individual’s everyday life. Either one communicates with family and friends or colleagues from all over the world. The various communication technologies available for use has helped facilitate faster and easy communication among people, thus, access to information is also quicker and simple. In this day and age, communication is not done merely to send greetings to family and friends, but is also used as an extension to learning. Information is now easily available on the Internet, thus, reading and writing are activities that people spend more time on.
In a day, I spend about 6-8 hours of cumulative reading and writing, comprising of time spent studying and engaging in personal activities. Some of these activities involve the use of traditional books, while some can readily be accessed using computers and the Internet. Among the many communication technologies I frequently use, I spend about two hours on Skype talking to friends and family from all over the world. Skype has made life easier for me considering that it is free, easy to use, has a face-to-face communication feature, and is mobile (The Art Institute of Pittsburgh). Thus, wherever I am, reaching out to people is trouble free.
I also use pens and pencils for writing and highlighting parts of books that I read. In general, I use these writing implements about 25% of the time only because most of the time, I encode lessons, answer assignments, and write papers using my laptop, which comprise about 75% of activities I do. Laptops and computers are also among the devices that I use extensively because lessons are mostly sent through emails and as presentations. In addition, a lot of online researches are required, which makes having the knowledge to use various computing devices and applications an advantage.
For networking purposes, I heavily rely on Facebook and Twitter to stay up-to-date with what is going on around me. For instance, if I want to know what’s happening with a colleague whom I haven’t seen in a long while, the best and easiest way to get in touch with the person is through Facebook since most people use the application to inform about their activities and whereabouts. I can also share information about myself through status messages, uploaded images, and the chat facility so others have easy access to me. Another benefit of using social networking media is that some news events happening across the country or other nations are broadcast first on Facebook before appearing on television news (Mitchel, et al., 2012).
Mobile phones are also useful communication devices that help me correspond with others since most mobile phones out in the market now feature computer applications that can be easily accessed with Wifi (Higgins, 2013). Apart from allowing me to chat with friends or send assignments to professors, mobile phones can be used with Skype in order to minimize the costs of calling another individual. It is also possible to connect the mobile phone to a computer in order to access important files and send through Skype. Among the technology devices, mobile phones are the ones that I used almost 24 hours a day.
With the many communication technologies available to man now, staying updated and connected with everyone is so easy. Devices that used to be designed for communication purposes only can now be used as a tool to further literacy and education. Technology won’t stop here as more inventions are introduced that will help make communication even faster and more reliable.
References
The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. (2013). The benefits of using Skype in education. The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Retrieved from http://www.aionline.edu/blog/post/The-Benefits-of-Using-Skype-in-Education.aspx
Higgins, J. (2013). More schools use cellphones as learning tools. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2013/08/07/views-shift-on-cell-phones-in-schools/2607381/
Mitchel, A., Rosenstiel, T., Santhanam, L. H., & Christian, Leah. (2012). Social networking and mobile devices. Pew Research Journalism Project. Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/2012/10/01/social-networking-and-mobile-devices/
