A New Era in News and Information

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/11/2008

The world wide web ... a saturated world of fact and fiction, diaries, opinions, videos, photos, buyers and sellers, and oh so much more...I can’t even list them all. Indeed, the landscape is changing in news and information. A new era has arrived in media consumption. The internet traffic can be overwhelming for some of us, with seemingly endless blogs and vlogs, podcasts and vodcasts. All you have to do is “google” this or “yahoo” that and download it or Facebook it. Some say, this is how they stay connected with their “friends” and show them their pictures. And I think to myself, isn’t that what we use hotmail.com and yahoo.com for?

And then I think, when did we lose our personal touch? What happened to our more intimate encounters where we met face-to-face for lemonade, hot chocolate, or shared a milkshake? Did we lose it around the time when Alexander Graham Bell made that first telephone call and later proclaimed to his father of seeing a future when "friends converse with each other without leaving home" (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/). Well, Mr. Bell, it’s become a lot more than you bargained for.

These days, I have to try to decipher my friends’ tone of voice through their text messages. It seems our hand held devices and computer screens get more face time than those near and dear to us. In fact, it reminds me of an email chain I read that in essence says we’ve traded the postal stamp for an email account and within the last several years, we’ve traded the email account for a networking site or a blog space. It seems like our treasured “friends” are now part of our Facebook or are invited to read our blog and post their own thoughts, rather than being invited to share a meal with our family or spend a night out on the town listening to a live band.

Things have become too convenient. We’ve become so self-important that everything we want to say finds it way on an internet blog or posted on a Facebook “wall.” There’s just too much traffic. Yet, what’s the alternative? Technology is streamlining our communication. I remember the day when it dawned on me that I would no longer be able to communicate with my two best college friends the way I wanted because they lived overseas and phone calls became too expensive. Even now, I dread making phone calls to friends who live in the states because time zone differences make it difficult to call within my “free” cell phone minutes... as no one provider offers everything you need for just the right price.

Yes, the landscape has changed immensely and I’m wondering when we’ll eventually stop communicating face-to-face and just rely on our Facebook to have profound relationships with people we call “friends.” I wonder when we’ll blog our ideas instead of getting together for neighborhood meetings. Will the internet become so crowded with all of our “stuff” that we’ll have to start paying hefty tolls just to be part of the Web community? Don’t get me wrong. I love new technology. How great are our iPods? Huh? We don’t have to carry around a bunch of CDs in some felt covered pack anymore...right? How great are text messages ... especially when you just need to say a few words because you don’t have time to talk. Without a doubt, new technology makes communication easier and accessible to many ... but at what cost? As with anything, people can abuse and misuse great technology and ideas. I hope that this new landscape in news and information ... this new era in media consumption doesn’t turn us into Sandra Bullock’s character in the movie The Net. Hopefully, we don’t turn ourselves into these islands where our only human contacts are done in binary code. Maybe there’s a way to bridge the personal with the technological without becoming too superficial. Perhaps only time will tell. Or maybe I just need to wrap my head around this new world of communication and realize that this may be as “personal” as it’s going to get.

-Nkoyo Iyamba