The Impact of Modern Telecommunications in the 21st Century

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Table of Contents

McLuhan’s View
Cellphones
Instant Messages
Blogs
On a Personal Level
Conclusion
Works Cited

Marshall McLuhan, a modern-day intellectual was one of the first to make sense of the impact and consequences of the rapid advancement in telecommunication technology. There is no need to remind everyone that he predicted that the time will come when mass media will change everything. It turns out that McLuhan was more than correct. The television set of his time has now been upgraded to the Internet and mobile phones.

The former was the backbone of a world turning into a global village and the latter closing the gaps making everyone interconnected without the hassles of cables or even the need to stay in one place. Today a person can be in the middle of the desert and still be able to communicate. But there is more. The Internet and the cellphone can be further broken down into their related technologies or services such as email, instant messaging, mobile communication, and text messaging. According to McLuhan and other like-minded writers, this is changing the scale, pace, and pattern of human activities.

McLuhan’s View

Marshall McLuhan was one of the first thinkers who saw the big picture when it comes to telecommunications technology. Since he saw the interconnectedness between media and mankind – and the fact that men and women can no longer live independent of said technological applications – he was also able to formulate some important aspects of 21st-century life and these are listed below:

Man’s capabilities, particularly in terms of consciousness and other mental abilities are being extended – abolishing space and time. Thus, according to this philosopher, in his famous adage, “…the globe is no more than a village” (McLuhan, 5).
Action and reaction occur almost at the same time when it comes to communication.
Combining the two aforementioned factors, new telecommunication technologies are responsible for changing the patterns of human behavior and relationships.

When McLuhan introduced the idea of the “global village” he was able to summarize in one phrase the global impact of various telecommunications media. But what needs to be emphasized here is not only the interconnectedness of humans per se but also the increasing ability of man to know what is happening in countries that are located thousands of miles away. This has both positive as well as negative implications and it is seriously changing not only human behavior patterns but also how people relate to each other.

The positive consequence of this newfound ability to extend oneself and know more about peoples living in inaccessible locations such as Tibet, Darfur, and Burma for instance, is to increase one’s knowledge and awareness. The negative consequence is that it pressures the viewer to immediately respond to the crisis or to be emotionally involved with something that one has very little power or influence to change. Anxiety, fear, and depression are just some of the common signs of being overloaded with unnecessary information. But more importantly, no one knows how to turn this thing off. No one can filter what is truly beneficial from the harmful, so everyone takes it in, meddling with other people’s affairs and yet unable to contribute something of significance.

The second point on the list reveals the source of so much aggravation and stress from modern-day living. Employers, employees, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and even strangers can easily invade privacy. Since mobile phones and wireless laptops are extensions of a person, through this device people can engage in communication even if the user is unwilling to do so. It now requires so much effort to disentangle oneself from the hustle and bustle of city life because even if one is on vacation he or she can still be reached via mobile phone.

The third point on the list provides a clue as to why many are seeing a changing pattern in human behavior as well as how men and women interact with each other. On the practical side of things, telecommunication technologies are responsible for changing the old pattern of hierarchical and centralized management techniques and replace it with a flatter and more decentralized approach in managing businesses. On the emotional side of human relationships, one can now find new ways of dating, finding a mate, proposing marriage, cultivating friendships, and getting to know people.

But there is so much more; mobile phones are now used as some sort of personal concierge where one can text a particular number to get information about movie schedules, restaurants, and cultural shows (Lukovitz, par. 2). Cellphones are also used as some sort of a census tool where information sent by the user provides information regarding the customer’s preferences (Atkinson, par. 1-2). Furthermore, high-end cellphones allow users to do multitasking and by making the person extremely busy he or she can inadvertently harm relationships by making others around him or her feel alienated, not to mention increase the pace of life for the serious multi-tasker. The following articles provide further support for McLuhan’s core thesis.

Cellphones

One of the many interesting lines in Sara Corbett’s article was a theory on 21st-century living, “…in an increasingly transitory world, the cellphone is becoming the one fixed piece of our identity” (Corbett, par. 4). This statement is not always true, the birth certificate and the social security number still have their functions but it is alarming to realize that in some parts of the world and many instances this theory can be proven true. For example, a mother may ask her daughter about the whereabouts of her son:

“Where does your brother live?”

And the daughter will say, “No one knows mom, but you can try his mobile phone.”

One can change jobs and residences but can keep a mobile phone number. It used to be that phones are fixed to landlines and when someone calls that person he must be in that same spot as the handset. But this is not true anymore.

Furthermore, the new cellphone design is nothing like its early predecessors. It now combines the power of long-distance and mobile communication with other related functions such as taking pictures and videos and then sending the same wirelessly to virtually every nation on the planet. Every year the number of islands and remote places without a mobile phone “signal” or connectivity is rapidly decreasing, soon the whole world will be interconnected.

Instant Messages

Aside from making life increasingly complicated and unfortunately more burdensome, telecom technology is also rapidly changing how men, women, husbands, wives, and their children interact with each other. According to one correspondent, “Children increasingly rely on personal technological devices … to define themselves and create social circles apart from their families” (Holson, par. 6). At another time, parents can eavesdrop, read the mail, and listen in to the extension line in the other room but today it is increasingly hard to ascertain who their friends are.

While adult women and teenage girls will use instant messaging to add more friends into their increasing web of relationships, for adult men and teenage boys the same can be used to form special relationships with the opposite sex. One nerdy type student who had no self-confidence to approach girls turned to instant messaging through his computer to eliminate the initial awkwardness and the butterflies-in-the-stomach problems and so at the end he was able to proudly say – instant message, instant girlfriend (Hobbs, par. 4-5). For parents, there is no way to begin describing this new dilemma of finding a balance between giving children freedom and at the same time the need to supervise their use of the Internet and cellphones.

Blogs

If emails, text messaging, and instant messaging are not enough to satisfy the craving for communication and self-expression there is now an added method for making public one’s thoughts, fears, and aspirations. It is some kind of a publishing scheme but minus the editor, ink, paper, and printing press. One can write whatever he wants and interestingly a new dimension is added, readers can reply and offer their feedback instantaneously without having to properly introduce themselves.

It is one thing to write for a certain newspaper and it is entirely another to publish something about your personal life and allow total strangers to take a peek and interact. There is not enough space in this study to properly dissect the implications of blogs and other similar media found in the world-wide-web but suffice it to say that this one adds another level of complicatedness to human behavior and human interaction in the context of communication.

On a Personal Level

McLuhan’s concept of “immediate action-reaction” sequences in present-day telecommunication between teacher-student, employer-employee, friends, co-workers, etc. need no exhaustive scientific research for me to understand. It is all too real for me to have to struggle with this phenomenon. Before the advent of cellphones and text messaging a person – a boss, girlfriend, best friend, parents – will have to think twice if what they have to say is important.

This is because calling someone requires some degree of effort. For those who are outside their homes, they need to find a phone booth, search their pockets for loose change. But today no one has the luxury of time to figure out if what they are “texting” or “emailing” results in information overload or if they are simply bothering the person on the other end. But they cannot help it, the boss feels he is entitled and the parents feel the same way too. So one can be vacationing in Hawaii but his mind is still in New York.

Conclusion

McLuhan was proven correct in his assertions that mass media allows man to extend himself and this newfound ability enables him to see far and beyond the confines of his home or his immediate surroundings. It is now possible to witness wars as they unfold as well as other cataclysmic events. But McLuhan was only basing his ideas on the capabilities of television. So when the Internet and cellphones were invented after writing his groundbreaking work, these technologies enhance the validity of his claims.

McLuhan was also correct in saying that there is now an instantaneous reaction to a given action. But he could not have imagined what text messaging and other various instant messaging tools can do to prove his theory beyond any doubt. As a result, modern telecommunication technologies are transforming the pace and pattern of human activities. On one hand, there are positive implications for this type of technological advancement but on the other hand, it is also very clear that if a man will not find ways to be responsible in the use of telecommunication devices and that if businessmen will not adhere to the ideals of corporate responsibility then the changes will increase the likelihood that in the 21st-century communication can be seen as intrusive, burdensome, and adds more to an already stressed-out life.

Works Cited

Atkinson, Clair. Network of TVs Talks To Cellphones and Trades Clips for Advertising. The New York Times. (2008). Web.

Corbett, Sara. Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty? The New York Times. (2008). Web.

Gould, Emily. Exposed. The New York Times. 2008. Web.

Hobbs, Roger. Instant Message, Instant Girlfriend. (2008). Web.

Holson, Laura. Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old (JK). The New York Times (2008). Web.

Lukovitz, Karlene. Product Tips You can Use, by Way of Cellphone. The New York Times. (2007). Web.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man. Georgetown University. Web.

Toffel, Kevin. Souping Up a Cellphone for Maximum Multitasking. (2008). Web.

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