User:Chris Natrasany/The advancement of the communication field, and the impact it had on society.

Communication is a vital part of our lives now in the 21st century, and is something we now take for granted. We have a reliable telephone network, postal service, and a variety of communication services over the internet via the computer, like Skype, email, blogs, Facebook, etc. Let's start by taking a look at the history of communication and methods used to communicate before the digital age took hold of communication via computerization which now enable us to send messages to the other side of the world taking only milliseconds! Long before the telephone or internet, smoke signals were used to convey messages. This is done by having several bonfires in line of sight of each other, so smoke signals can be sent from one fire and and either retransmitted through other fires who see the message to carry the message over a long distance, or the second fire can respond to the initial message from the first fire. There are clearly a few problems with this method; the time it takes to send a message, and if the message is going a great distance and needs to be retransmitted through other bonfires this process can be quite lengthy in time. Also there is a reliability issue, because if it's cloudy, or dark so that you can't see another fire's smoke their is no way in transmitting a message, not to mention rainy weather where you may not be able to sustain a fire. In the 1830's and 1840's Samuel Morse, among other inventors invented the telegraph. With this revolution communication was now possible over long distance, since the telegraph could transmit electrical signals between sending/receiving stations connect by wire. Solving all of the issues related to communication technologies before it, such as drumbeats and smoke signals since the telegraph did not require you to see the target you wish to communicate with and was independent of the weather. Since the telegraph was electric, transmission and receiving a message was near instantaneous even over great distances which was a huge advantages over the previous communication, such as the couriering of mail from one city to another. Now important messages could be sent long distances fast and reliably if the destinations were connected via a wire. Thanks to Gugliemo Marconi's contributions in the late 1890's, he revolutionized communication by unveiling a wireless telegraph system in 1896. Marconi was able to sent electric waves from land to sea which allowed communication to military vessels and public ships. In 1901 Marconi succeeded in receiving a transatlantic signal in St. John's Newfoundland that was sent from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, beginning a whole new generation for communication technology. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, which was a great leap forward over the telegraph, since it allowed for voice to be sent from one destination to another, and allowed full duplex communication, that is allowed both hosts to send sounds into the telephone and receive sounds at the same time! In 1878 a manual switching board was created that allowed many phones to be connected to each other via the switching board operated by an switching operator. It took time to make long distance telephone calls because your call had to go through many switching offices to be connected to the right phone, unlike today where the phone network is circuit switched. The telephone was much easier to use than a telegraph and quite a bit faster, which made it very popular among the public, having 30 million phones in service in 1948, and 100 million phones in service by 1971. From the 1900's to today, communication technology has advanced quickly, and most of these advancements are because of computerization, storing data, use of circuits and digital technology and processing data via chips on a circuit board. We don't normally think of television as a form of communication, but it has such a vast audience that when breaking news happens, broadcasting it across the television network allows a huge number of people to be quickly informed of the situation at hand. Computers are widely used now and there is nearly one in every home. They allow us access to an exorbitant amount amount of data with a few keywords of what were looking for, not to mention that the internet interconnects these machines letting them communicate with each other. Thus, people requiring information, from say a web site wouldn't have to be in the same residence as the server hosting that website but can traverse the global network known as the internet to talk to that machine in other town's, state's, countries, even other continents with the help of transatlantic cables and satellites. The same goes for talking to people through computers, I'm sure most people at one time or another use some form of text base chat such as MSN or Facebook chat to communicate with friends, or have had video chat's or online telephone calls with Skype, or sent an e-mail to a friend, even if it was a funny picture of what your cat did today! Looking past simply talking directly to people through computers, the internet has led to a whole new world with communication, social media is a huge hit letting everyone connect with whomever they want be it family, colleague, or high school friends. Facebook is one of the big names in social media letting you share thoughts, pictures and experiences with others, but there are many other methods, such as Youtube where anyone can share videos and experiences with the whole world, or Flicker and DeviantArt where the focus is on sharing photos and art. Blogging is another popular method to share beliefs in detail, where you compose a blog on any issue you want to talk about to share with the world. Today the big craze is the cell phone. This is the ultimate tool for personal connectivity to your social life. The basic cell phone allows for calling and texting which is highly popular with today's youth, not to mention the uses of having a phone you can take anywhere for work, emergencies, and for every day issues where you must contact someone where you aren't near a land line. Another form of mass communication that we sometimes overlook is the advancements of radio. This covers everything from the radio stations you hear in your car, to sending signals via radio waves for communication between planes and airport controllers, battleships and military headquarters and everything in between! And let's not forget about our wireless internet, which can bet sent out using a short range wireless router, or via satellites for targets with no cable connection. Most of the advancements of the 20th and 21st century included taking previous advancements and making them smaller, portable, and/or more efficient. Now phone communication is near instantaneous and because of the complex telephone network you can reach nearly any household or business in the world. The phone, has also been miniaturized to fit in your pocket, and get reception nearly anywhere making them extremely popular, especially with the revolutionary new smart phones! This allows us a connection to the internet through our mobile phone and access to applications, games, and pretty well everything you need from a mobile device. Computers have taken a similar turn for portability, going from gigantic machines that filled entire floors of an office building and using vacuum tubes making them slow and high maintenance, to being small enough to be stored in a desk in many homes, and using circuits rather than vacuum tubes. This lead to widespread use of computers and created a global network of information. Now they have become even slimmer and portable now so that computers can be easily taken with a person to a job site, to school, or on the family vacation. Some of these laptops are no bigger than a textbook and weigh only a few pounds! Rapid advancement of technology make it hard to tell how long your “new” piece of technology will actually stay new. In the future of communication technology I think that portable technologies will dominate. We will have a “super-smart phone” that is the center of our communication needs and everything else, including managing all of our home electronic equipment, monitoring your house and family, etc. I think the “super-smart phone” will end up taking the place of our normal desktop computers in most cases since it will pretty well do everything a computer can and have as much processing power as a desktop computer, if not more, and fit in the palm of your hand, which will attract so many people to it.