Modern communication problems

I guess there is quite a lot of irony in sharing a video that damns modern communication on mediums which are being criticised for the isolation of people and modern communication problems.

The thing is, we all have these excellent tools, but just how good are they?

Well, the tools are excellent, as most would agree, but what about the way we use them?

You, reading this post, wherever in the world you are, is proof that the tools are fantastic – opening up avenues that only a generation ago, people would never have dreamed of existing.

When Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “Global village” in the 1960s there was little indication of the plethora of technologies that would, three decades later, make the world a “global city”.

The main issue is that many have substituted these marvelous technologies for any real human contact and communication, to varying degrees.

Have you ever tried to speak to your Internet or mobile phone provider, just to iron out an issue?

I don’t mean by email or instant messaging or chat – I mean actually talking to a human being.

Have you ever been on a car journey with teenagers?

Communication isn’t just about words.

I wonder if these tools contribute to the decline in writing and reading skills, of memory and attention spans.

Vincent Mosco argued that there are problems with the “death-of-distance” and “end-of geography” metaphors in modern communication technology – we can send multiple messages all over the world, quicker than ever.

Although social and cultural values and connections cannot be completely recreated through virtual reality.

We can [almost] certainly say that the utopia promised by new technologies comes with significant and interrelated physical and cultural challenges that need further investigation – maybe only time will tell, as the great Bob Marley so aptly put it.

Although, I’m sure that a lot of us will agree that not all is bad.

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