Social Phenomenon - Communication

Introduction

According to John Fordyce Markey (Markey, 2007), a social phenomenon is considered as including all behaviour, which influences or are influenced by organisms sufficiently alive to respond to one another. This also includes influences from past generations. This paper will discuss the social phenomenon of electronic communication and will discuss the scope of this phenomenon from beginning to present and future day. Communication has played a fundamental role within society for decades. It is used globally and within all societies to express feelings and opinions about certain situations. It plays a key role in being used as the medium for passing information from one person to the next. Communication has experienced many changes since its initial introduction to society and it as evolved greatly in terms of operations and technology. Society can be significantly affected by evolving communication.

Chronological Order

1832 -Samuel Finley Breese Morse invents the telegraph, also known as the Morse code. Written codes appeared on a strip of paper by using pulses of current to deflect on electromagnet to move a marker on the paper. Members of congress witnessed the first communication by electric telegraph in 1844 when a message was sent and received from Washington to Baltimore.

1866 - The trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was successfully put down and operating twenty-two years after Morse code was created. The trans-Atlantic cable is a permanent electrical communications link between the old world and the new world.

1874 -Thomas Edison invents the Quadruplex telegraph. The Quadruplex telegraph is capable of sending 2 messages simultaneously in different directions.

1876 - Alexander Graham bell invents the telephone. The telephone was created when Bell was trying to create a multiple telegraph, when doing so; he noticed he could hear sound through the wire. The sound he heard was one of a clock ticking. The first words spoken over the telephone were from Graham Bell to his assistant, "Mr. Watson - come here - I want to see you."

1929 - Television is invented by Philo Farnsworth. Farnsworth was experimenting with an electrical pickup and image-scanning device called, the Image Dissector. In 1927 the first long-distance transmission was sent of a live picture and voice simultaneously.

1932 - The computer is invented. Gustav Tauschek created the first magnetic drum memory in Austria.

1969 - Internet is created. From the contributions of J.C.R. Licklider, Leonard Kleinrock, and Lawrence Roberts, the internet was created under the name of ARPANET in 1969. The Advanced Research Projects Agency took the Internet under contract and went online in December 1969.

1978 - First email was sent. Ray Tomlinson, a computer engineer, invented an internet based email in 1971. The email is the ability to send simple messages to another person across the network immediately.

1986 - Mobile telephones began. The cellular phone is a type of wireless electronic communication. It is called a cellular phone because many base stations are used to divide a service area into multiple cells. AT&T was the first cellular phone company in 1947. At this date, an operator connected incoming and outgoing calls.

1992 - The first text message was sent. SMS (short message service) was first used December 3, 1992, when Neil Papsworth, a 22 year old test engineer, used a personal computer to send the text message "Merry Christmas" through the Vodafone network to the phone of his friend, Richard Jarvis.

1997 - First social networking site was created. A social networking website is defined as a web-based service that allows people to construct a public or semi-public profile, add a list of other users, and view other's profiles. The first social network was SixDegrees.com. This social website promoted itself as a tool to help people connect with, and to send messages to others.

2011 - 3.1 billion email users. In today's society electronic communication has skyrocketed. The number of worldwide email accounts is expected to increase from 3.1 billion in 2011, to 3.6 billion in 2014.

Summary

From Samuel Morse inventing the telegraph to the invention of mobile phones and SMS, electronic communication has been globalized. Electronic communication has been normalized in today's society. Before individuals depended on the Internet and cellular phones to keep in touch, people were able to focus on schoolwork without the distraction of cell phones or laptops. With the ease of the mobile device comes addiction to these devices. Along with the intervention of the Internet, identity theft increased. Online chats for children also raise the risks of the children becoming a victim of pedophiles. Electronic communication can also be looked at as a positive aspect because it helps students keep their families and friends close, and keep long distance relationships possible. Recently, iPhone has invented a more personal way to communicate, called Face Time. Face Time allows people to talk to each other over a mobile phone and have a visual image of that person as well. Social networks provide the opportunity for people to come together who share the same interests, but have never had the chance to meet in person. This immediate communication makes us capable to share news reports such as, incoming storms or dangerous people.

The future of electronic communication is expected to help individuals multitask even more than they already do. Future mobile phones will be all of the mobile devices combined into one. It is predicted that tablets will be able to translate different languages, making it easier for users to communicate internationally. Books, magazines, and newspapers will no longer have a need to be printed due to the fact that every article can be found online. It is not impossible to think that at some point in the future we will be able to communicate electronically with only using our minds.

Reflection

The phenomenon of rapid communication has application at all levels of social interaction. Regionally, nationally, and globally, communities have an expanded opportunity for participation and contribution. This option for increased involvement does more than just increase the speed, efficiency, and connectivity of current social behaviour; it has transformative potency to scale new developments and create avenues for specific social gains. This in turn allows individuals to operate at benchmarks ahead of their time.

Regionally, information, which is critical to direct application in day-to-day affairs, is accessible with a high degree of reliability.