The act of communication has changed over the years due to the changes in technology. Advancements in technology over the past decades have affected how people in the society pass information and how they communicate amongst each other. The rules of communication that were applied fifty years ago are no longer applicable in this day and age. The use of mobile phones, computers and laptops has changed the way people communicate in this century. Back in the days, such materials were not available neither had they been invented. Communication between friends and family members had been narrowed down to telegraphs and letters.
In the present day and age, however, thing are much more different in so many ways. Through the introduction of mobile phones and computers communication methods have changed. It is very simple for people in the present day and age to access news and updates every minute of the day. Even without having a television set, it is very easy to have contact with the happenings of the everyday world, whether political, social or economical. Email messaging, Facebook updates, instagram and twitter have made the communication of information very easy. People update the daily happening of their lives and those of other every minute of the day.
These communications have made the ways reading and communicating different in so many ways. It is very difficult to find people writing letters to each other in this century. Emails have replaced the method of communicating such as using letters and telegraphs. Emails are very instant and require less effort compared to letter. In letter writing, it was very easy for people to bury their emotions and real thoughts behind the alphabets in their letters. Emails and other new methods of communicating have led to shortening and lack of compassion to the ways of communicating. Use of mobile phones too has caused this as most of the times people are complaining of how they are being cut off during conversations, “Soon phone calls were made mostly on mobile phones, whose sound quality is mediocre and prone to failure altogether (‘you’re breaking up’ is the cry of our time) even when one or both speakers aren’t multitasking. Communication began to dwindle into peremptory practical phrases and fragments, while the niceties of spelling, grammar and punctuation were put aside, along with the more lyrical and profound possibilities. Communication between two people often turned into group chatter: you told all your Facebook friends or Twitter followers how you felt, and followed the popularity of your post or tweet. Your life had ratings” (Sonik 32).
Through this, the latest generation has a hard time in concentrating while they are doing any task; whether reading, doing assignments or working. People are recently reaching for their mobile phones or their laptops and other electronic devices to check the happening in the world. No one wants to miss out on anything happening. Due to this the concentration in the tasks being done has been reduced by almost eighty percent. If Malcom was living in this era, maybe it would have been difficult for him to keep up with the late reading he did in his cell. The use of dictionaries too has changed in this era as the online world has replaced it. The electronic devices have online dictionaries and it is very hard to find the people in this generation logging in to the dictionary cites rather than the social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Malcom spent the first days of his reading career or hobby learning words from the dictionary, “I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary's pages. I'd never realized so many words existed! I didn't know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying. In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks” (Malcom 1).
My life has changed since the inception of electronic devices such as smart phones, iPads and the like. I remember reading a physical book was much easier when I was younger, in the early 1990’s. Getting a dictionary to check up words from a a short story or a comic book was much easier. My parents bought me a numver of story books to help me enhance my reading and writing skills. With the use of electronic devices in the present age, reading has become a little bit difficult. Most of the time is spent checking up on friends on social media. Everything I read is straight from the internet. Getting to a library to check up on a book has become a hard task. Most of the reding materials cn be accessed on E-book, and due to this, reading other books and materials has become hard. I usully access the books from the internet or the library when I really have to, especially for my assignments. The reading discussions in class have opened up my mind and due to this, I have started visiting the library to read and check out materials I can use to enhance my knowledge on many apscts of the world.
It is clear that the methods of communication have changed to some extent they are good. People can reconnect with old friends who are in various parts of the world, something that was not possible back in the days. It is good to keep in touch with the daily happenings of our friends and families and the world in general. But it is also important for the world to go back to some of the old day’s ways of life. The young generation should start using the dictionaries rather than relying on the internet where they have to shorten all their mode of writing. The grammar and punctuation of the present generation has deteriorated due to the use of these electronic devices and technological ways. As much as they are good in advancing the world, they have to be monitored to some extent.
