Communication is everything. Every single organism in this world has a different methods in communicating with one another. Ant’s uses scent to communicate with one another, dolphins uses sounds and humans have change their way of communications overtime with the help of technology. The telegraph was one of the greatest invention made that change the concept of sending a message. Before this invention had come around every message had to be physically sent through different forms a transport. Either by hand or taking a horse to give that physical message to the next person.
Telegraph made it possible to turn that physical message into a digital form. Messages would be sent through wires to the next device. When people realise the potential of this device everyone country started setting up wires across the world. The first message that was sent using a telegraph was “What hath God wrought?” A quote taken from the Bible.
In a funny spin off by Family Guy these are some of the things people would have used the telegraph for
With the help of technology we are now able to experience real time messages. No longer do we have to wait. Messages can be sent in an instances but here comes the second issue. We are impatient! At the same time we have grown into this culture where the message is “seen” but no replies are made and this makes people feel uneasy.
Another aspect that needs to be pointed out is how people must document their life digitally and sometimes forget to live in that moment.
(Adele asking someone to stop filming and enjoy the actual show )
We want those like, we want people to know what we are doing and we want them to envy us.
I recently went to Troy Sivan’s concert in Sydney and while I was taking pictures of his performance. Everyone else was doing it too, we were posting it on snapchat and on Instagram some recorded the whole performance.
Which comes to a very important question. Has the need to digitise our experience for the world to see made us lose track on the experience itself?
the change is coming 
The need for humanity to be connected at all times, at a faster rate, and with greater ease, will always drive the expansion of the global network. If it did’t, instead of holding up phones at Troy Sivan’s concert, people would be holding up telegraphs. Though, there are some who would argue that the ease of digital communication is isolating us from real, human interaction. I am not one of those people. The global network has connected us in a way that has fundamentally changed how we perceive the world. This link breaks down the usage of digital communication formats in 2015, and shows how it has become a vital part of human existence. http://www.smartinsights.com/internet-marketing-statistics/how-important-are-digital-communications-in-2015/
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This is a great blog post! Really thought provoking! I began thinking about your question, does the digitalisation of memories cause us to lose track of the experience, and decided to check out what other people have said about this and why we as humans rely so heavily on digital memories. This recap of a TED talk likens our experiences in life to drops in the ocean, and to make sure we don’t forget certain memories we must drop anchors instead of water drops. Paul Philleo calls these “anchors of memory.” You can read more here: http://blog.ted.com/does-documenting-your-life-online-keep-you-from-actually-living-it-an-excerpt-from-the-new-ted-book-our-virtual-shadow/
But then I questioned, why social media? We could just as easily create these anchors in physical form and keep them in home movies or photos, but we feel the need to post them on social media for everyone to see at any time. Then I came across this great article that states; “the more people who are a part of a network, the more one’s experience can seem impoverished by being left out.” https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/26/pics-or-it-didnt-happen-mantra-instagram-era-facebook-twitter
These are both great links to extend your blog post further. Great work!!
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Thanks for the read! Very interesting indeed on how documenting our lives or moments and posting it online is like an anchor for us to remember. In fact if we were to follow the long tail theory. That is what we are doing by capturing these moments and posting it online. Our most current moments that we post would be considered the head while all the rest of our pictures and memories posted becomes the long tail where we may one day look back at.
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It’s so true how we all want instant responses, I myself find myself creeping on my friends to calculate how long ago they were online vs how long ago i sent my message! It’s crazy, i know. I also relate to the filming of concerts, it’s generally really unnecessary because when will you ever watch back that recording? Probably never. To answer your question, I believe that it does make us lose track of the experience itself. We are too busy gaffing around trying to sort out our phones, get the right filter to post it for our social media following to see. No one really appreciates a poor quality video recording when you can hear your terrible singing in the background… I believe that living in the moment will create better memories than trying to capture it. Awesome blog post, it’s super relatable!
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Nice question! I can’t agree more about how impatient we have become. Technology development is a good thing, but nowadays we are too dependent on it. Virtual values are overwhelming real values. Nowadays, it’s us to be consumed by the Internet rather than we consume it. Myself is an example.
By the way, the memes are hilarious!
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Hi Ivan,
I love the way you begin your post by relating to other species’ communication process. So true, we humans are also a kind of creature in this planet and we need communicating too, and that’s why we have to utilize it and there you go, the telegraph, telephone and now the Internet.
I totally agree with you that despite all the advantages that technology brings about, the drawbacks are visible. We have changed from so so expected to see a mail arrived into getting bored of too many messages in the mailbox. I am wondering whether it loses the meaning of communication. We no longer wait for it, so why do we even need it ?
Your examples are so realistic. We are spending so much time living virtually. I and my gf even had to set a rule: no smartphone while dating.
I personally think that we will even be more engaged in cyberspace. You may enjoy this article which predicts about future possible communication breakthroughs 😉
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/future-of-communication1.htm
Great work ! Keep it up 1
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I agree that digitalising our experiences has lead to minimising live experiences! I honestly couldn’t blame Adele…Every concert day in and day out, I would’ve had it too! Digital platforms have for sure opened up human communication platforms. We as humans do have a way more vast communication method online. A good way to have linked your post more back to the lecture could have been by mentioning the various digital networks – centralized, decentralized and distributed. Over all your post does a super good job covering the history of communications with a funny choice of memes and clips!
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I think your use of the Adele clip is interesting. In the video she highlights that she doesn’t want the person filming because it’s a real show and there are lots of people that couldn’t come in, and that makes me wonder – does she realise by disallowing the filming of her show that she is then excluding those who could not attend? She uses this argument to try and push the idea that there are multiple people who would love to be in the situation he is in – able to experience her performance live in the flesh, however having one person film could be the difference between only those in the room sharing in that experience, and allowing those who haven’t been able to attend to share in the experience as well.
You ask whether our desire to digitise our experiences makes us lose track of the experience itself, however I don’t think that is the case. I find that in a lot of situations digital integration has become the natural response to the point where if we forgo posting about it, the experience isn’t ‘complete’. Instead of consciously making an effort to enjoy what is real and around us right now sans technology, I believe we are using technology to enhance our experience to achieve those goals. Does that mean we should document every small aspect of our lives in order to enhance our understanding and experience of the now? Probably not, but the beauty of the internet is that it allows people to do so whether we approve or not. Our world has been wired to continuously update those connected to us through the digital realm. We use this space to define ourselves through a digital footprint, and when people interact with that, we get a sense of satisfaction. https://blog.bufferapp.com/psychology-of-facebook
Just a suggestion with your extra content included in the blog post: be sure to clearly label the sources, and highlight which of these items are your own.
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I love that you started with a comparison to how other animals communicate and the fact that you attached the link to videos about it. I absolutely agree that people have become impatient and have to get a response straight away. My mum is a massive culprit of that impatience.
In regards to phones and recording at concerts, it has become a societal norm. This hasn’t been a big change though, before camera-phones people would take cameras to concerts. The documentation of the experience hasn’t changed but the method of the documentation has changed. That being said it has increased since the introduction of Facebook, Instagram and snapchat, people do want those likes.
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Hahahaha, the meme is so true. I remember the fist time I set up my email and I’m so happy to get one email even its ads mail. I like your blog; this is one of the best blog I come across so far. Easy to understand; engage audience, a lot of example (I love video and picture) and hyperlink. With the question at the end, from my personal opinion by digitize our experience for other to see would make us lose the true experience itself but it is better than watching digital experience from someone else. Also some people find people taking pictures and filming at the show are annoying and influence their true experience. (http://goo.gl/C9qnyk)
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A great blog post but i think a limitation the used of video or graphic would be helping? I like the idea you put up on your post and according to Ted The Idea about “The world is a body,” is a unique way to picture the world that we living , as a new digital era that we taking advantage of it each day. Perhaps If we looked back many years ago since the telegraph been invented, Is hard to imagine how how primitive its method and characteristic are, in comparison to today’s technology that was invented to fulfill our need.
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Great commentary on the telegraph changing our experience of reality by changing the necessity of materiality. That meme is so cute!! Although I don’t ever think I’ve been old enough to get too much mail 😦 It’s definitely hard to avoid everyone’s incessant need to digitally document their entire lives. I think it’s interesting to note that people either digitally document to record an event or moment for themselves (like a concert) or they digitally document online through social media. In the latter it’s very curated and based on how a person might want to be perceived (ie their instagram or their twitter). People digitally collect to either curate an image publicly or collect a moment personally, but it feels like these days people are using this technology less and less to genuinely collect for themselves and more and more to curate this online persona or image. I dunno, just food for thought your blogpost got me thinkin about haha
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