ICT has changed dramatically through the years. Today in the 21st century, communication has been one of the biggest improvements as well as changes in the way that we communicate. They way that most businesses, young people, and most working adults communicate today is different from when our grandparents communicated during their time. There are many new devices that have enabled us to communicate quite easily with each other. When phones were first released they were not able to do half the things that that phones are able to do today.
Take for example the Brick phone, which was the first handheld cellular phone, that was released on March 6 1983, the only thing that the phone could do is let the user talk for half an hour, and it could last for eight hours before it will need charging. The other features that the phone had was an LED screen, and memory that could only hold thirty contacts. These phones at the time were very high on demand because of the personal wireless communication and that resulted to the cost being £2,523.42. This phone affected society in quite a bad way because they were not the most convenient phones that a lot of people would like. The brick phone was very heavy to carry therefore not many people would want to carry a briefcase, because it is a lot effort. The next thing about the rick phone is that the range that the phone can get through is not that much, therefore it is not that much to call someone from a long distance away, so although the phone is meant for calling, it is not very useful if the user cannot call anyone who is not within their range. the next point is that there aren't many features on the Brick phone, all it can do is call, even if it is calling, the user can't talk for a very long period of time. I can imagine the people not finding this phone very interesting, and quite boring. Lastly the phone is a ridiculous price, especially at the time when only the rich could afford such a phone, therefore quite a lot of the working class would not buy such an expensive product
But if you take one of our latest phones such as the Nokia N8, it has a variety of ways in which we can communicate, compared to the Brick phone. These include, SMS (Short Message Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), this allows media such as pictures to be send via texting. This is good for users because some people may not want to call, and in terms of how texting makes life easier for the user, it is a simple way of sending something important or sending messages abroad. For business this is a bonus feature because although it costs more to send the message it is much cheaper than calling, and at least the user will know that the person they are sending the message to, will receive the text. In modern phones there are many features which phones of today have, one of these happens to be having internet access on the phone. This is one of the newest and easiest ways in which people of this informational age communicate with each other. Going on the Internet enables the users to access sites such as Facebook or Twitter to communicate to people. This has affected society in different ways, one of them being a big business opportunity for phone networks because they can make deals that include having free Internet for as long as the contract specifies. The second is business are able to make quicker transactions because they can also access their email to, so they constantly know if anyone has sent them any mail regarding their business. The next of phones that there is of course calling, but not just ordinary calling, the phone has video calling which means the users can see each other while talking. It would mostly be teenagers and working adults who would want this kind of phone because teenagers can easily find a lot of entertainment on the phone; social networking has become very important in the lives of teenagers so they would want such as feature. As for adults since they do a lot of communication between companies this phone does become very ideal for them.Video on how the Blackberry has affected different people's lives
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There are various other ways in which we can communicate. one of then being instant messaging, which is talking to someone at the same time on a messengers such as Yahoo or MSN, or within phones like the Blackberry or Iphone. Instant messaging is chatting to someone who is online at the same time, and they can receive it in normal time, this is a fast way of communicating because it is instant and it is free. In this information age, technology enables features such as instant messaging to be put on day to day basis devices such as phones. New phones of today such as the Blackberry have its own messenger on the phone, as well as the Iphone which allows the user to download the application onto the phone without any costs attached. This has become much easier for business men and women because deals are made constantly, and its makes it easier to talk to people who are abroad for faster transactions, and faster deals, it is also a quick way of sending data, such as news journalists who will need to send a story to their news company as soon as possible. it may not just benefit those who are working, but also for people such as teenagers who just enjoy talking to their friends. messenger as mentioned is free, so why should people have to use credit to call someone when they can easily send them an instant message when they are online, or just leave an offline message so long as the receiver gets it in the end. so in terms of the way IT has affected communication in this area, it has improved the way we are able to communicate with each other on a day to day basis, and it makes it easier to talk to more than one person at a time because there can also be group discussion on instant messaging, so this adds to the fun as well as to the interaction between users. it is also a good way of communicating outside of the country, usually calling someone from abroad would cost a lot of money, but having instant messaging, so long as they are online at the same time, it is possible to talk to someone who is in a different time zone.
Video on instant messaging
Click on the pie chart to enlarge the result, the question is on the pie chart
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The next form of communication is emailing, although this type of communication is dying out, it is still a great way of sending formal and informal discussions. One way which email has made life easy is attaching documents, media, music etc. This is one thing that social networking sites haven't been able to do yet, it is a quick way of sending documents such as memos, or agenda's to everyone who is involved, email is a great way of storing important emails (Gmail is currently the only server that does this). Email is basically a letter but is written on the computer, therefore most of the characteristics of the letter are found in an email. So it can be said that emails are a fast and easy way of sending messages, so it could be that if a person was on holiday instead of using a postcard, which will end up arriving late, and by the time the receiver has it, whatever the writer wrote is what they felt at that time so the receiver won't feel like they know what is recent. Unlike an email where the user can actually customise a card in the form of a postcard can send it the same day, and the receiver can see it the same day, so they know that the person did the event on the same day, so it’s almost like they are up to date with what is going on. So the way that IT has affected people in this area is that emails that are sent and received are recent so the users know that any email that they send or receive will not take long. IT has also made emails are way of organising the important from the not important as been mentioned, it is a good way for businesses to know if they have received any documents concerning their interactions, and in such cases IT has also made a way of protecting these emails by the HTTPS, this enables any important messages or private information concerning the user to be protected from any hackers.
Video conferencing is one of the main concepts of entertainment that has become one of the main fundamentals of communication. having video conferencing has great features as well as advantages, one of the first reasons is that it can be accessed from numerous environments as long it has internet access and they have a webcam of some sort in order to see the face to face communication. the good thing about video conferencing is that it is in real time, so its just like having a conversation with someone apart from the fact that the users are seeing the other person from a computer screen. in this age of technology, video conferencing can also reach out to people who are in remote places, this is an advantage for some people because they are able to exchange cultural differences between each other as well as gain a new pen-pal just by video conferencing. in business terms, video conferencing is what makes some business gain a better global recognition, and since its video conferencing is almost like talking face to face it is very easy to get acquainted with the new business partners. it is also good for hosting meetings with people within the business without having to book a large room, it is very easy to communicate to them. it also saves time on having to send them emails when they can easily tell the person what they need at that time, in addition to that it is very easy to organise meetings in the short notice because i would presume that everyone would have a computer in their office, therefore all they need to do is to inform them that they are having a quick meeting at some point, and all the staff involved can be online at the same time. lastly it does save quite a lot of money for a lot of people, instead of paying a lot of money to fly out to a country to meet the person, meeting online does save a lot of costs for the people, this is why some phones such as the Iphone 4 which has a camera, are able to do such jobs because they would want to video call someone to save costs.
Advantages of Communication
One of the main advantages of communication is that it can be reached by someone in another country, which makes it very convenient for many people to either talk to friends or business partners. In this informational age it has allowed calling to be done a lot quicker than usually, sometimes to call internationally a card with money within is what would be needed, but now thanks to instant messaging and video conferencing that has all changed, it is easier quicker, lot more efficient and it doesn't cost a thing. so communication is constantly improving and making it a lot more interesting, such as using devices such as the Ipad, Blackberry, and Iphone, to make the calling experience much more entertaining. the Blackberry has its own messenger which makes it much easier for the user, the ipad can access social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and the Iphone can pretty much do both. another advantage about communication is that the user can work from home, thanks to video conferencing its does make it a lot easier to make transactions from their ownthome rather than going to an office which adds to a lot of costs.
Disadvantages
of course there are some disadvantages of communication such as spam mail by emails, some companies will send a lot emails to millions of email addresses to try and advertise their business, or they will act as though they are a the users bank, insurance dealer etc. and will try and persuade them to use their card in some way in order to take their details and use them however the hackers please. another disadvantage is that in terms of social networking and instant messenger, there are thousands of people on the network, and since its about meeting new people, the user can receive random requests from some people, the only problem with this is that some people can pose to be someone that they're not, so if the user befriends this character it can be a big problem for times to come. the next disadvantage is that since in this infomrational age people talk on the go, everyday minute of the day, it can prove to be tiring at times because many people rely on this person, or they are a entrepreneur who needs to make sure that the business is running to its full potential so this can cause quite a lot of strain having emails, calls being sent to one device.
adding people user may not know. it is also very easy to get side tracked from communicating a lot, its very easy to forget about plans that they may have made, or about any appointments which they were meant to do because of the amount of communication that they need to do during off and on working hours. in addition to that if the user if one of the main family members, they won't be able to spend quality time with the family which can be quite a problem for them as well as the family.
News stories on Communication
This news story is about how Saudi Arabia is blocking instant messaging services from Blackberries. they fear that using Blackberry sources may cause something bad to happen because, the Blackberry is very hard to track texts and emails. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/aug/05/saudi-arabia-blackberry-ban-snooping
this news story is about how technology is evolving phones, and how they could soon replace high tech lab equipment. in some countries where they lack scientific equipment, they possess mostly mobile phones.
