What is technology? What is communication?

Communication and technology are intertwined with every part of our modern day lives. Some people say we can’t live without technology and communication. In contrast, some people say that we can live without communication BUT we can live without technology! An example of these technology so called ‘haters’ despise the way we use our mobile phones. They say we are controlled by them, having to ‘be on call’ 24-7. Despite the fact that sometimes these ‘haters’ maybe be true about the mobile phone controlling us, can we really live without one?

The answer for some of would be yes. I myself feel that my phone controls me in a way that I can’t enjoy the day. I feel naked without my mobile phone, and sometimes empty feeling of loneliness builds up inside of me because I left my phone at home and now can not contact my friends and so on. On the other hand, in the midst of forgetting my phone, I find that at the end of the day that I felt quite good, ‘one of the best days of my life’ I think, and am somewhat glad that I forgot my phone and didn’t worry about anything all day.

Worrying about communicating? You can never communicate too much, that is how we strive as a people. But communicating with another human being believe it or not can sometimes be daunting! Intersubjectivity, a theory that the listener interprets a message and changes it as they send it along. Every heard a story from your parents that were passed down generations? It would be interesting to compare the old version against the new version.Intertextuality is also another theory that any message gains its own meaning (for a particular person) from all the other messages that a person has previously received and sent.

My particular experience with this is messages sent on mobile phones. The use of emocons (the little characters that people add to messages to display emotions and feelings) had widely affected me in the way that made me feel about a person. For example, I often received messages from Japanese girls with little love hearts and similar characters. This threw me off and made me think that this girl liked me. However, this was not the case as I embarrassingly found out. She had only put them on just to make the message more pretty and cute!! Gee I felt sheepish!!

There is no doubt that most of us use these new technologies everyday and ultimately embrace them for our future lives. Without technology and communication where would we be? Maybe back in the olden days with the cavemen!! Who knows!? Technology has many mysteries.