WEEK 2 "The History of Communication Technologies"

Hi, this week we had a look at the history of communication technologies through these two timelines: Some Dates in the History of Cultural Technologies  and The History of Communication.

By exploring these timelines, I was amazed by how fast our method of communication has developed. I noticed that in the old day’s communication technologies were often characterized by its main purpose for example, photography, radio, television, telephones etc. Therefore, nowadays new communication technologies have combined many devices to create new tools with more than one purpose. The convergence of new communication technologies allows the users to access different means via one device. Examples of technologies that are converging could be the new smartphones. As in the early days we would use mobile phones to call or text each other but today we also use our phones to take photos, listen to music, access the Internet and even use them as maps.This major development may have various benefits for its convenience. Therefore, keeping up with the latest communication technologies might be a challenge for many people.

However, it's not only the technology devices that are changing. Think about the languages that we use to communicate in our modern society. Words such as LOL, OMG, BTW, IDK and many more have become common in texting and social media platforms as it shortens the words or sentences. Emojis are also a popular way of expressing our emotions through a combination of symbols, used in texting or chats. The popularity of emojis has also recently appeared in many famous music videos such as Katy Perry’s single Roar. 

This style of communicating may seem very new but in fact, the smiley face or :-) was first used by Scott Fahlman in 1982. The emoticon was originally posed on Carnegie Mellon University computerscience general board. This was the original message on the board:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c> I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to markthings that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-( 

By looking back to the history of communication technology, there seems to be nothing that is impossible to for our next generation. :-)