TL;DR How Modern Technology greatly influenced the communication of our society.

Modern technology in today’s society has greatly influenced on how our society functions. From the development of the computer, smart TV’s and all the way to cellphones, all of these technologies has influenced our way of communication. Although the purpose of all these technologies are ways to make communication between people easier, many downfalls of technologies for communication started to show up. When it come to the topic of technologies influence on communication, many people would say that technology has made a positive influence on our world, but I would say that the same technology for communication has caused many negative effects in our society.

When you think of communication, there are two parties that run it, the speaker and the listener. But I would like to add a third party to the mix and that is the media. The development of the media has made a strong influence on how our society runs today. From the creation of CNN in 1980, to the birth of social media in 1997 the media has strongly influence the ideas broadcasted to the people. The goals for the mass media is present the greatest stories, but by also influencing the reader’s perspective on the story so they will want to come to see a story again. With the development of the mass media, the ideas of giving out the first story of an event became more prominent instead of giving out the full truth. This cause the viewers have to look at many different news stories to find the truth behind the story, instead of just watching the nightly news all on one channel. This separation of the media has allowed political parties to influence the news in producing what their political party wants their viewers to hear but not the full truth. For example, when you think of Fox News you think of strong republican influence and when you think of MSNBC you think of strong democratic influence. Both of these news stations will be giving you information on current events but will shift the facts to make their political party seem like the better political party, but this also makes it harder for the viewers to actually understand what is going on. Not knowing if the news surface is reliable is one way modern technology has influenced our society.

Another negative influence in our society caused with communication is the development of the cell phone. Wait you’re probably thinking how I could argue that cellphones has caused a negative influence on our society and this is how. One example, is when you are texting someone and you read the text message like they are mad at you but really they weren’t, this happens to me a lot. Also on cellphones when you are talking to the person you can’t receive facial expressions like you would receive in a normal conservation. This is very observant in phone interviews, where the interviewee thinks the interview is going well based of how the employer is talking but doesn’t get the job because of lack of face to face contact. Cell phones can also be very distracting. For instance, when I was writing this paper a notification pop up on my phone and I decided to check it, which in turn wasted ten minutes of my time. To combat from this negative distraction many major companies are banning cell phones in the workplace.

In today’s society, a strong source of communication comes from social media. The first social media networking company was called, Six Degree, which was enabled the users to upload a profile and to make friends online. After the invention of blogging in 1999, social media began to explode with popularity with social media networks like MySpace and LinkedIn. It wasn’t until 2006 until the creation of Facebook and Twitter came out into the media world. In today’s society the three most popular social media networks are Facebook with over 1.5 billion people, Instragram with 400 million people and Twitter with 320 million people. Although all these different networks make communication easier it also cause many problems as well. When you post on social media you reveal who you are to Internet, where stalkers can stalk you, people can hack into your accounts and where a place other people’s words can make you look bad.

Here is my solution for solving communication problems that technology have provided to our society. Without breaking the first amendment, I think the government should be allowed to control the speed of way the media comes out to the world. This will allow you to learn the whole truth about the news without bringing mass panic to the people in any given situation. For cell phones a solution is to ban the use of cellphones in a work environment. Also you shouldn’t limit your only use of communication being through a cell phone, instead speak with them in person. For the social media aspect, people should either make their page privates so random strangers can’t view it or should be more protective of what you post. For example, whenever I post stuff online I never say the location of the post so people can see where I was, when I was posting about it.

Modern technology dealing communication has had both a positive and negative impact on the way we live your life. Even though technology has made communication simpler, it has also made communication skills between people a problem. This lack of communication between individuals personally have caused many broken up relationships, divorces and heartbreaks. I’m no way saying we should stop using technology to communicate with people, but using it shouldn’t be the only way we talk to one another. So next time your family is sitting at the dinner table turn off your phone and just talk to one another and you will never know where your conservation will take you.

Work Cited

Adweek_edit. “Here’s How Many People Are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Other Big Social Networks.” – Adweek. Adweek, n.d. Web. 03 May 2017.

Hendricks, Drew. “Complete History of Social Media: Then And Now.” Small Business Trends. N.p., 06 May 2013. Web. 03 May 2017.

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