This is a blog for COMM 429: Communication Technology at the University of Cincinnati. We study media from media ecology and phenomenological perspectives.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
New Blog
Sorry all, for some reason the old blog has been removed. This will be our new site. Tell your friends!
Ever since high school, I have noticed the influence the cell phone has had on basic human interaction. Rumor's are rarely spread by "word of mouth" anymore. At any kind of gathering, some people will have limited verbal conversations. Instead, during what most people would call "awkward silences" or breaks in a conversation, participants in the group will have their eyes on the phones they are holding in their hands. Whether or not they are texting, I always think to myself how different conversations would go if people did not have the need to distract themselves real-life human interaction. (Well, they would go exactly how conversations and interactions went for thousands of years before cell phones.) The use of cell phones has created so many distrations. They have caused society to be so dependent on avoiding the "awkward silences" or awkward situations. These same people seem to pull their phone out even when there is no communicating involved. People will fill their time waiting, for example in a doctor's office or for an appointment, playing games or surfing the web. Older people tend to criticize the younger generation's society because we are constantly distracted by our phones and having our mind in other places, but I see it a little differently. With all the new advances and emphasis on education, our teachers and parents want us to have access to all the knowledge we can get our hands on. They seem to want us to take on so mamy responsibilities that, even without our phones, our society's younger generation is prone to constantly having the need to be doing something. The idea of patience has seemed to disappear. This, in turn, causes us to fill the spare minutes throughout the day with our phone's in our hands and our minds in a virtual world aside from the real world that surrounds us.
Ever since high school, I have noticed the influence the cell phone has had on basic human interaction. Rumor's are rarely spread by "word of mouth" anymore. At any kind of gathering, some people will have limited verbal conversations. Instead, during what most people would call "awkward silences" or breaks in a conversation, participants in the group will have their eyes on the phones they are holding in their hands. Whether or not they are texting, I always think to myself how different conversations would go if people did not have the need to distract themselves real-life human interaction. (Well, they would go exactly how conversations and interactions went for thousands of years before cell phones.) The use of cell phones has created so many distrations. They have caused society to be so dependent on avoiding the "awkward silences" or awkward situations. These same people seem to pull their phone out even when there is no communicating involved. People will fill their time waiting, for example in a doctor's office or for an appointment, playing games or surfing the web. Older people tend to criticize the younger generation's society because we are constantly distracted by our phones and having our mind in other places, but I see it a little differently. With all the new advances and emphasis on education, our teachers and parents want us to have access to all the knowledge we can get our hands on. They seem to want us to take on so mamy responsibilities that, even without our phones, our society's younger generation is prone to constantly having the need to be doing something. The idea of patience has seemed to disappear. This, in turn, causes us to fill the spare minutes throughout the day with our phone's in our hands and our minds in a virtual world aside from the real world that surrounds us.
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