In the twentieth century a lot of changes and innovations have taken place. New technologies are invented and our environment changes. Especially communication and information technology has been changing at an increasing pace. We become more and more familiar with new technologies as they are slowly but surely replacing old-fashioned ways of communication. In professional correspondence email is making communication with business partners all over the world much easier.
This way of communication has the advantage that distance disappears as we communicate with other companies almost instantaneously all over the world, whilst we save time and costs, but it also has disadvantages such as the depersonalization of human relationships and security issues.
Emails can be sent and recieved anywhere in the world and make sent information accessible almost everywhere. Also an email can be sent at any time, unlike making business phone calls to a company in another country for example, where different time zones might limit the time frame during which the business partner is available. Furthermore emails are sent instantaneously and offer the possibility to request a delivery information for the sender and in addition can be stored or printed out as written proof. It is the fastest was of written communication and it helps saving a lot of time as information is being sent back and forth.
The Essay on Communication and Information Technology 2
Technological advancement have improved and eased the communication process. With the world revolving around technology, almost all tasks have been simplified consequently reducing the number of hours that one can perform a certain task. It has helped in the organizing information, thus enabling access and retrieval of information easy. The use of technology has helped many organizations cut on ...
According to Geld (2003) all correspondence can be administrated on screen, replies to business offers can be written, revised, saved, and forwarded to other parties, all without masses of paper being involved. In fact this makes it possible to save many costs that used to incur before the invention of this technology, such as expenses for paper, stamps, envelopes or even phonebills. An additional advantage is that some companies can advertise more effectively by sending the same email to many recipients without having to write or print it out many times and put it in an envelope for each addressee. Moreover the excess use of paper is an environmental issue as well that can easily be resolved by taking advantage of this new technology which is free of charge.
However, as the use of communication technologies increases, mindfulness and interpersonal skillfulness seem to decrease. ?Is communication technology (?)? reported that technology is a medium that helps communicating, but is not synonymous with communication.
Therefore the ability of communicating effectively with others does not increase with the improvement of information technology. According to Baldwin and Flood (1996) no real face-to- face conversation takes place when communicating through other mediums. All non-verbal signals and nuances of conversation, such as facial expressions, pauses, posture or body movement are absent in an email. In addition certain differences might remain unnoticed, as the persons do not see each other while they communicate which can cause complications, such as cultural misunderstandings for example.
In addition internet security is a widely known problem. Of course it concerns emails and even some companies? entire computer networks as well. For instance ?Email Security Issues? (n.d.) reports that any email can easily be read by co-workers or computer service departments.
The Term Paper on Internet Technology, Marketing, and Security
Social Media Marketing: The use of internet and social networking in the workplace has grown substantially over the last few decades. Because of this, individuals are now using the internet in various ways. Technologies such as social networking sites, blog sites and other innovations give individuals a chance to interact with one another (Apigian, Ragu-Nathan, Ragu-Nathan, & Kunnathur, 2005). ...
Furthermore personal information, such as email address, login name and even real name is compromised when people access websites of third parties through their email account.
In the past there have also been many cases of computer viruses being sent in an attachment via email that caused minor and in some cases even major damages to computers or even entire networks.
In conclusion the improvements of communication technology have a huge impact on the communication between people by making communication easier and faster and also a lot cheaper, especially concerning communication across countries or continents. Nevertheless the depersonalisation of human relationships by strictly communicating over the internet has a negative impact on the ability to interact with others and it also appears to be quite risky as security is not always guaranteed. In fact one of the most important factors is how a message or information is communicated to another person. Therefore improvements of communication technology do not necessarly make people better communicators as technology does not provide any help for that as its main task is to accelerate the information proccess and not to improve the author?s writing skills.
References: Baldwin, B. & Flood, T. (1996).
Rhetorical Dimensions of Cyberspace. Retrieved October 14, 2004 from http://wac.colostate.edu/rhetnet/rdc/edintro.html Email Security Issues (n.d.).
Retrieved October 16, 2004 from http://www.counterintrusion.com/images/Email%20Security%20Issues.htm Geld, S. (2003).
Advantages of email. Retrieved October 16, 2004, from http://zongoo.com/article605.html Is Information Technology Making Us More Effective Communicators? (n.d.).
Retrieved October 12, 2004 from http://www.ivysea.com/pages/ldrex_0301_02.html
