Sept 3 response

A big part of this reading was trying to put a name or identity to the kind of communication medium that the internet is, flipping between being an interpersonal medium or a mass medium. I really like the term that was used, Meta-medium, or a medium for media. The convergence that has taken place over the last few years has linked everything now to the World Wide Web. It’s almost as if you, or your business is not part of the phenomenon, you have ultimately limited your relevance in our society. It’s a hard concept to put a label on because of its constant change and growth. I can sum up the innovations throughout the years to the internet’s reliability, speed, and distribution in one short timeline.

When I first experienced the internet, dial up status like in class, I was glued to my oversized desktop computer in my basement, now with no phone-line to communicate through. It was almost as if you had to disconnect yourself from the world even further in order to have the world ironically at your fingertips. 5 years after that, I had to sit at my laptop on the phone with a linksys support technician trying the figure out what the hell is wrong with my wireless router. Now, I sit next to my friend in class. And through his ipod, he goes online, and has full conversations with me on my laptop via instant message. This is a prime example of not only the convergence we discussed, but the digitalization of our technology as well

I can’t even begin to say how telling I found the initial cartoon to this reading to be. In essence, the growth of the internet has both increased and decreased human interaction. While communication to mass audience has become a worldwide phenomenon, interpersonal communication has become damn near extinct. Only time will tell with this theory, but I truly do believe that my generation is slowly loosing its ability to interact with each other on a one on one basis. It’s becoming an uncomfortable form a self disclosure, the whole face to face thing. When now a days you can simply break your thoughts down to a text or instant message, why sugar coat things with truly in-depth conversation and sincere reciprocity? That’s just silly.