Communications via technology

Technology is very instrumental in communications between people.  I realized this after doing my tech diary.  Most of the times that I’ve talked to my old school friends are through a Skype call.  We sometimes have a call going for nearly the entire day as people enter and leave the chat room.  This is showing me the importance of how technology keeps us together.

I want to discuss how technology allows us to keep in touch with our friends.  Before I discuss this, I want to say that I do not use snap chat, Twitter, Facebook, or other similar websites or apps.  These sites I see as being mindless vortex of information.  I will acknowledge that that Facebook is a useful tool when used to keep in touch with old friends.  I don’t think it should be used to keep a day to day diary on the internet.  I also don’t understand the need to post pictures of what you ate for dinner.

No, the usefulness in technology comes from proper usage of devices.  The primary device I use is Skype.  I find this program fascinating because it allows all of my friends across the state to essentially be together in the same ‘room’ and talk to each other.  Personally, I have a preference when it comes to communicating with others.  First and foremost, I like to talk in person.  Next, I enjoy talking over a phone or Skype.  My least favorite is communicating via messaging.  As stated earlier, Facebook can be a useful tool.  I have heard of stories where companies look up potential employee’s Facebooks to see what their personalities are like and dismiss those who post degrading material of themselves.  Another use of Facebook is how my brother found a house to dorm in during collage by posting up a status of where he was going and what he liked.  His dorm mates saw his status and decided to invite him to stay with them.

I know that I’ve stated this before, but in the future I really want there to be a VR chat room.  Imagine being able to talk to each other ‘face to face’ in a virtual room, though it would probably take a long time before we could perfectly render our faces so we would have to be content with generic faces or customizable faces like in popular MMORPGs.  Currently we could face chat, but none of us want to pay for that functionality, so we settle with simple voice chat.

When I think about it, it has become almost second nature for us to call each other via our phones when we want to contact someone or send a text.  This habit has developed after constant exposure to our mobile smart phones.  I don’t think that it would be too far fetched to say that if some VR technology like Google Glasses or Oculus Rift became readily available along with communication capabilities, it could become second nature to communicate via virtual reality. Food for thought. I know I was very biased in my blog today, but it can’t be helped because I have chosen not to use those websites and apps.