How did the Modern Media Interfere With the Effective Communication Skills?

By now, it’s no longer a secret that the modern media, or in a word, the Internet, is considered to be such a good alternative to the face-to-face communication, which used to being an effective one. As a matter of fact, it's even more of a replacement than an alternative. While the Internet is a free world, except if you’re surfing from China, it can be both a blessing and a curse. There are these great social networks like Facebook or Twitter or the hardly-breathing “my|_____|”, whose popularity has severely decreased lately.  If you have trouble identifying that space, it’s actually just that: space. My Space. Got it?

These social networks represent the globalization, the exchange of ideas, thoughts, data, between people who could be far away from each other.  Thanks to the internet, we can constantly stay in touch with people who live at world's end.

The first thing you'll be told when asking for tips on how to choose a career will be to look after the highest paying jobs which are hot on the market. There are chances that at some point, you'll meet someone who will tell you that the computer engineering salary is pretty high. They would be right, because the computers play such a big part in our daily activities, that they have become something indispensible, affecting even the way we communicate between each other. The jobs requiring public speaking are becoming less and less popular, while the jobs behind a computer seem to receive the opposite treatment. It’s no surprise though, since the communication through the Internet proves to be a lot easier. You can express your thoughts in an articulate manner without the risk of having a stammer, like you could have in a face-to-face conversation and there are no 'aaaa's or 'uhmmmm's in an online chat, unless the person really wants to say that. Many people have a problem with speaking in public. Their voices tremble and the things they have in their minds don't always come out through their mouths.

On the Internet, you have more time to think before writing something. If you’re about to say something out of place, you can backspace and delete the entire text before the other one reads it, while in face-to-face interactions, if you say something stupid, you won’t be able to rewind back and erase it.

However, the Internet has its disadvantages. Even though the rules of effective communication are pretty much the same on the Internet, you’ll notice that the Internet is a more vicious battlefield, dominated by hate speech, flaming and spamming. Also, there is this tendency to make opinions pass as facts, which is impossible, otherwise they wouldn’t be considered opinions in the first place. There are no right or wrong opinions; there are only opinions you agree or disagree with. The Internet is also considered an alienation tool – it distances us more and more from the ‘real world’ and it even threatens our communication skills, sucking us into its slang world so much, that after we turn off out computers, we might not be able to hold normal conversations with the people surrounding us, using only words like OMG or LOL to express our thoughts and feelings.

While the social networks & Co. are effective communication platforms, the face-to-face way of communication and the modern media shouldn’t eliminate each another; they should co-exist peacefully, because without effective communication, we would be sleepwalking through life like robots.