3) What evidence do you see of the impact of communication technologies on our society? This can come from personal experiences, articles you come across in the newspaper, stories from TV etc. - anything that demonstrates changes in society due in part to communication technologies.
As an RA, I have seen the way communication changes from the beginning of the year. Immediately, incoming students are always reading through every message--email, blackboard, syllabus--and listening to every word. About midway through the third week they hit an overload and head in a completely different direction. At this point, all but the most vital messages are utterly ignored. Emails that are designated, or at least seen, as mass emails are definitely ignored. In fact, the messages checked the most are myspace or facebook messages. This depends on the frequency of the messages, but the same principal applies.
I think it associates most closely with Simmel's theory on perceived intimacy. Despite frequency and form, people are still affected by more by perceptions. Mass emails show no intimacy are commonly ignored, while facebook and myspace have a designation of social activity that encourages and produces a form of intimacy.
The only stipulation is this: Even when the form is changed, the intimacy is still perceived differently. Some organizations have started using social networks to communicate and the lack of intimacy is still significant. In this case, it seems that intimacy is only felt through specified and direct communication and has no direct connection to form.
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