Does Technology make us better communicators?

In the twentieth century a lot of changes and innovations have taken place. New technologies are invented and our environment changes. Especially communication and information technology has been changing at an increasing pace. We become more and more familiar with new technologies as they are slowly but surely replacing old-fashioned ways of communication. In professional correspondence email is making communication with business partners all over the world much easier.

This way of communication has the advantage that distance disappears as we communicate with other companies almost instantaneously all over the world, whilst we save time and costs, but it also has disadvantages such as the depersonalization of human relationships and security issues.

Emails can be sent and recieved anywhere in the world and make sent information accessible almost everywhere. Also an email can be sent at any time, unlike making business phone calls to a company in another country for example, where different time zones might limit the time frame during which the business partner is available. Furthermore emails are sent instantaneously and offer the possibility to request a delivery information for the sender and in addition can be stored or printed out as written proof. It is the fastest was of written communication and it helps saving a lot of time as information is being sent back and forth.

According to Geld (2003) all correspondence can be administrated on screen, replies to business offers can be written, revised, saved, and forwarded to other parties, all without masses of paper being involved. In fact this makes it possible to save many costs that used to incur before the invention of this technology, such as expenses for paper, stamps, envelopes or even phonebills. An additional advantage is that some companies can advertise more effectively by sending the same email to many recipients without having to write or print it out many times and put it in an envelope for each

References: Baldwin, B. & Flood, T. (1996). Rhetorical Dimensions of Cyberspace. Retrieved October 14, 2004 from http://wac.colostate.edu/rhetnet/rdc/edintro.html Email Security Issues (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2004 from http://www.counterintrusion.com/images/Email%20Security%20Issues.htm Geld, S. (2003). Advantages of email. Retrieved October 16, 2004, from http://zongoo.com/article605.html Is Information Technology Making Us More Effective Communicators? (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2004 from http://www.ivysea.com/pages/ldrex_0301_02.html