Technology

The internet has given birth to tremendous new social activities and forms of interaction. This is all due its basic advantages of being available widespread and its access and usability. The past two decades have fundamentally altered the way we play, learn and communicate. The evolving internet and wireless technologies have made communication somewhat easier. On the other hand, text communications over the internet and mobile have isolated people. It has given rise to talking through text messages. This is a very different way of communication as compared to face to face communication.

Problem
There is a lot of criticism on how the internet has changed lifestyles and social networking manners. The new ways of communication are built with the theme of closeness in mind. In fact, it serves just the opposite purpose. In face to face communication, the tone of the voice, the face emotions, space, the pitch of the voice, touch, smell, all matter a lot. They have a huge significance on what the speaker is saying. In nonverbal communication, there are many feelings and actions missing (DeVito, 2003).  Imagine someone saying I love you with a stern face and angry voice. Or even with no feeling at all. The message will not get through and may be interpreted in a wrong sense.

Text messaging and internet communication have burst out because of the trend in teenagers and young adults. According to the Pew Research Centers Internet  American Life Project,
Daily text messaging by teens to friends has increased rapidly since early 2008. Some 38 of teens were daily texters in February 2008, and that has risen to 54 of teens who use text daily in September 2009. Of the 75 of teens who own cell phones, 87 use text messaging at least occasionally.(Amanda Lenhart, 2010)

Average numbers of teenagers use around 3000 text messages monthly (Amanda Lenhart, 2010). The way text messages and internet communication are addictive it is harmful to our societies and children. Children make use of slang language and have abbreviated a large percentage of the English language. Some very common examples of abbreviated words are GTG (Got to Go), BRB (BE Right Back), c ya (See you), MSG (Message), etc. there are hundreds and thousands of such combinations of letters that people now use unnoticeably. The drawback here is that once a person gets into the habit of using short forms, it is very hard to break. This often leads to embarrassment. Students nowadays often use these abbreviations in their research papers and exams. So, even if there answer is correct, they end up losing marks. The issue is not only about academics. This is a social problem that interferes with everyone. It may be very inappropriate and annoying if a spouse replies with only short answers like sup or dunno etc. (Oickle)

The technology of messaging and was developed for the purpose of fast and short communications. People have now completely altered this concept.  Chatting, emailing and the social sites were also introduced for the purposes of remaining in touch and close with friends and family. These fads have completely overtaken the intellect of communication.

The lack of emotions and gestures often lead to a very misunderstood communication. It develops misunderstandings and do not present a clear picture of what is been said. According to majority of the language and expression experts, communication is the merger of 90 of non verbal actions and expressions and 10 verbal. Another advantage of having a face to face communication is that the brain captures an image of the conversation and has a better memory of it. When a text message is received, we do not have the many options to decipher what the sender is doing or going through at the moment. The receiver automatically creates a fantasy image of the expected emotions and tone of the message sender. (Carter, 2010)

Solution
I often wonder how text messaging and online communication became so popular. Even though almost everyone learns to read and write proper English in school, teachers discourage it every time and it is not used for formal business tasks, the popularity and negative effects of text messaging and online communication are increasing as quickly as a flash.

My thinking is that with the increase in technology and ease of communication methods, this fad cannot be controlled or limited. There are new and more innovative methods and social websites developed every day. There can however be a way that this dispassionate way of communication be altered in a way that it shows emotions, feelings and even the tone of the speaker. Technology has advanced a lot in the past decade. Engineers are devoting hundreds of hours in designing different protocols aid in communication techniques.

People are now heavily making use of emotions in text messaging and online communication. In the early days, these emotions were combinations of different characters that represented some mood. For example if a person wanted to send a smile, a colon followed by a closing parenthesis like  ) was written. The colon represented the eyes whereas the parenthesis was the smile.  A dash -was inserted in between to represent a nose. However, the moods were limited. Gradually after more improvement, these emotions were given a graphical image. Now many more emotions were introduced in this list for example feeling sick, giving a hug, love, etc. Furthermore, the graphical emotions were animated. But the animated versions are only compatible with limited cell phones and internet applications. This use of emotions in communication can drastically change the way of communication. It is much reader friendly than simple texting. Of course the real feeling of talking face to face cannot be achieved, it is still an improvement.

Another way that effective communication may be carried out by the use of modern technology is the use of voice SMS, video chat and MMS technology. A MMS is a relatively newer version of text messages communication. It is a way to send and receive multimedia content through sms. Pictures, sounds, animations and video clips can be sent by an MMS. It has broken the limitation of 160 characters in an SMS. Another way to convey the message and emotions is to send a text message accompanied by a picture. This option is also an extension of MMS. The MMS technology is considered right now to be the top choice in communication. It has easily surpassed the text messages and SMS technologies (Hensley, 2008). Voice SMS is yet an additional relatively new way to send messages on the mobile phone. These special types of messages transmit recorded messages to one another. So instead of typing a message, the sender records his voice and sends it to the intended recipient(s). There are certain limitations on which type of cellular service and which cell phone model is being used by the sender and receiver. Older mobile phones were not built with the options of MMS and videos. The voice and video chat option is the closest to face to face communication as it involves an image as well as the voice. The only drawback in this type of communication method may be the time lapse due to connection problems.

All the above mentioned technologies are some of the solutions that a person can adopt to overcome the problem in inconvenience of text messaging and internet communication. These methodologies decrease the rate of misunderstood or misinterpreted messages.  Even without the convenience of face to face communication, these schemes help people to better communicate with their friends and family.