Challenges: Communicating Clearly in the Communication Age.

Texting has to be one of the greater inventions of the twenty first century. Like a two way radio, texting sends your message directly to the intended receiver instantly, and often a response is received in matched haste. But what if the sender doesn't receive a reply right away? Did the receiver just miss the message? Are they busy and intend to get back to you later, or do they just hate you? With the influx of instant communication, we must learn a new way of communicating altogether or we will be left with wrong interpretations.

The communication era was brought about by the desire for information. Different forms of communication have existed over the centuries, but only in the past two hundred years or so has it become faster and more accessible. News can be found on television channels devoted solely to the medium at any time of day. News reporters are updating blogs, pages and twitter accounts with up to the second information, and with social media sites like Facebook, personal information can also be up to the second.

All these new avenues of information are supposed to make life easier, but do they? With news at every second of every day, important news can be drowned out in all the filler information designed to maintain viewership and subscribers. Reading up on your friends lives on Facebook means sifting through 10 meaningless posts about food choices and gym accomplishments before anything with substance is found. In todays fast paced information age, content is sacrificed for access, real relationships are sacrificed for 140 character updates. And with things like texting, getting a message immediately to a person can create the need for an immediate response. The ease of information is riddled with more problems and communication in todays age has with it it's own set of new problems.

Today we must be communication and media literate, we must know how to properly interpret the jumbled stream of constant communication or we may become overwhelmed and misinformed. More importantly, though, we need to learn to slow down. The need for constant interaction is a thirst which is too easily touched, but never quenched. It may soon be necessary to take a step back from information sources and concern ourselves again with the important things happening in our real lives.