Hello, Ann Eliza!
I heard you hold interest in wanting to learn about the different ways we communicate in the 21st century compared to how you communicate currently in the 1800s. Well, let me tell you, it’s very different. While you’re probably sitting at a wooden table in a brick home next to a fireplace that requires real wood (you know, from a real tree) to function, I’m sitting next to a battery-powered electric heater as I type up this letter on a laptop computer. While your hand is still probably aching from all the Christmas letters you’ve had to write by hand with an ink pen, my hands feel no pain as I softly tap these little buttons with letters and numbers on them. What’s so great about the way I am “writing” to you now is that I don’t have to worry about not knowing how to spell complicated words or how to turn a fragment into a complete sentence. My 21st century device does all that for me. Using the “computer” is a very common way for us, the “aliens” of the future, to communicate with one another.
“What is a computer?”, you ask. Well let me explain this the best I can. A computer is a technological device that has a keypad, much like that of a typewriter, only there is a glass screen attached to the top of the keypad, where the paper for a type writer would typical roll out. The average screen-size for a computer is about the width of a one foot ruler and the height of a ruler and a half. But it’s not so much the exterior of the computer that is different from what you’re used to in the 19th century, it’s what’s inside.
Inside the computer, there is a very complex system that allows us to type up documents for everything from a tax report to an assignment for English class. We rarely have to worry about misspelling words because just about every computer nowadays has an integrated “spell-check” feature which warns us when we spell a word that does not exist. The “spell-check” feature then suggests similar words as a way to guess our intended word. It’s right 99% of the time.
With the Computer we can also play virtual games, check the time of day, choose a picture we want displayed on the screen at all times, and much more. But what’s most impressive about the computer is that it allows us full access to the “internet”. (I know you have no idea what that is.) The internet is such a complex system that I myself barely understand it. The internet is, ultimately, in the air. It allows us to share our thoughts, our knowledge, favorite pictures, and literally everything else you could ever think of, with the entire world. Don’t ask me how it allows us to do this. It just does. The internet can be accessed not only via computers but also on little devices called “cell phones”.
A cell phone is a lot like a computer only it is much, much smaller and can literally fit into the palm of our hands or in our back pocket. With a cell phone, we are able to contact people from all over the world. There are things called “cell towers” all over the planet that send signals from phone to phone. When someone in the 21st century purchases a cell phone, usually at a store that specializes in cell-phone technology and cell payment plans, they are assigned an eleven digit “phone number”. This is basically our cell phone’s identity. The “phone number” is divided into three sections. The first three digits of the phone number are usually the same for every phone in a specific country or state. This is called the “area code”. Pretty self-explanatory. The next three digits are typically related to the city or county a person lives in and the last four digits are completely random. Every human being has a different phone number. None are exactly the same.
When we want to contact a friend, family member, company, or even a complete stranger all we have to do is type in that person’s or company’s eleven digit phone number into our device, hit the button that says “call” and we, after a couple of seconds, are able to talk openly with that person.
A couple years ago, most cell phones had tiny screens with a keypad like a computer, only much smaller. Now, the majority of our cell-phones are “touch screen” phones called “smart phones” that contain no buttons, but instead have one 4-5 inch screen that responds to the material of our fingertips. Cool, huh?
Cell phones are the most common way of communication nowadays. Computers are becoming less sought out in terms of communication. Computers are usually preferred when it comes to typing up large documents, such as this one I am typing up for you, or checking the status of a bank account because the larger screen makes the process more functional.
Since I’ve talked enough about computers and because just about every human being on the planet in the 21st century owns a “smart phone”, I’m going to go into deeper detail about the infinite array of things we can do on them. Because every “smart phone” is integrated with (expensive) internet service, we are able to do so many different things on them. Here is a list of just a couple of things our smart phones allow us to do:
-check the weather forecast
-play millions of different games on “apps” (short for “applications”)
-write notes
-record voice memos
-keep record of our diet and exercise
-listen to any song that has ever existed on the planet (which can be uploaded to our phones via our computer or a popular 21st century app called, iTunes were all music exists digitally)
-watch just about any movie or television show (you probably don’t know what those are either but I can send a separate letter explaining that)
-check stocks
-take pictures like you would a camera
-edit the photos we capture to look perfect
-check our “e-mail”
-view maps for every part of the world so we can get from one place to another without any trouble
-read books and magazines without having to buy them from a store
-mark dates on the digital calendar
-and sooooooooooooo much more but I’d be here all year if I tried explaining it all
But we have to dive deeper into the smart phone and its features to really understand the complex yet utterly simple way that we communicate with one another here in the future. As I stated above, “apps” are applications. These applications can be digitally downloaded from what is called the “app store” (it’s related to iTunes, where we get our digital music) onto our phones. The most popular communication apps of right now are called “Facebook” and “Twitter”. These apps are called “social media sites” and can be accessed just as simply on a computer (except most people prefer to use them on their phones because phones are more portable and easier to carry around everywhere). Below, I am going to briefly describe all three of these communication apps individually, starting with Facebook.
Facebook is by far the most widely-used social media site of them all. Like all social media outlets, Facebook started off as a communication service that appealed mostly to the “younger generation”. It has since become a concrete communication platform for people of all ages, from elders to pre-teens. It’s basically a requirement for any human being of this time to have their own Facebook account. When you first “sign up” for Facebook, which is completely free and very easy to do, you are encouraged to “like” certain Facebook “pages”. To “like” something on Facebook simply means that you find interest or meaning in a certain company that is on Facebook, go to their page (or account) and acknowledge that you like the company by clicking the “Like button” on their page. You can only like pages on Facebook that are dedicated to commercial companies. Things are much different when it comes to acknowledging your approval for an individual person on Facebook.
Say you have a very good friend who you know has a Facebook account. You want an easy way to communicate with this friend and would also like to know more about them (i.e. his/her interests, favorite music, favorite foods, family members and mutual friends). All you have to do is click the button on their account page that says “Send Friend Request”. What this does is it sends a “notification” which is basically a tiny alert to the friend’s cell phone that says you would like to be their “Facebook friend”. Your friend then goes to their Facebook app and either clicks the “Accept” or “Decline” option that comes integrated with the notification and just like that you have immediate access to just about everything your friend is sharing about their life on the internet.
When you create your Facebook account you can type up something called a “status”. It’s very simply. You simply use your little keyboard (the one on your phone or computer) to share any thoughts, opinions, or knowledge you may have. You could recommend that your Facebook friends go visit a certain shop or restaurant or you could tell them how you are feeling. It can be completely irrelevant to every other human being on the entire planet. You can still share it. If anybody finds your status interesting, they can “like” it by clicking the “Like button”. It usually makes a person very happy when somebody likes their status because it makes them feel important. Honestly, I’m beginning to realize how ridiculous this is because our importance seems to be defined by a little click on a keyboard.
A person can also leave a typed-up comment on a Facebook status. Maybe your Facebook friend posts a status of their favorite Christmas sticky-bun recipe. You really find this status intriguing but you’re unclear about whether you should add a pinch of salt to the caramel batter before or after you stir in the rest of the ingredients. Well, you can clear up the confusion with the simple post of a comment.
Facebook is one of the best ways in the modern world to promote a product or business (or yourself if you’re that self-obsessed. Ugh). Just about everybody nowadays goes to Facebook to like the page of a company they find interest in. This way, any time the company posts a status about a deal they are having on their product or anytime they release a new product the status will appear on their Facebook “timeline” (which is the main page of your Facebook account where you can see everything that everybody you are friends with posts). It keeps a company very connected with their target audience. Also, just about everybody on Facebook holds no shame in sharing their opinion on almost everything so it’s great place to go for advice or customer reviews on a product or company.
Now, say you have a Facebook account and your “text message” (this is the sending back and forth of digital text on your cell phone, much like writing a letter only much faster) isn’t working on your phone. With Facebook, you can contact a person individually and in private so that nobody else can see your conversation by using the “Messenger” feature of the site. However, it is very important that all of us here in the 21st century remember that anything and everything that we post on the internet, in private or wit the general public, can be tracked down by the government. This is how the government regulates any vicious behavior over the internet or any harmful threats made. You’d be surprised how many crimes are committed within this massive virtual world of ours.
Next, I’m going to talk about Twitter. Twitter is like Facebook in that it allows us to communicate with one another, only the demographic of people who use this social media site is much more specific. This is mostly due to the fact that Twitter is relatively newer than Facebook, so older people have yet to embrace it (but they will soon, trust me). Another way that Twitter differentiates from Facebook is that when you want to share your thoughts with the world, they are called “tweets” rather than “posts” or “statuses”. A tweet is limited to 140 characters, which makes Twitter a bit more challenging when it comes to sharing our thoughts. However, this is what makes it so fun. It’s a great way of teaching us dim-witted, short-minded people of the future to choose our words wisely and to paraphrase.
Signing up and creating a Twitter account is just as simple as it is with Facebook so there’s no sense in explaining the process of it. Once you do create an account however, things become more overwhelming. Like on Facebook, you are encouraged to acknowledge the different companies or people who are involved with Twitter who you approve of. To do this, you go to their main page and hit the “Follow” button. The button then turns from white to blue and you suddenly you get to read everything they post without having to visit their page to do so.
On Twitter, there is a section called “Trending Topics”. This section shows you the most tweeted words or hashtags (I’ll #get #to #that #in #a #minute) of that very second. Usually, when something major happens in the world like say a natural disaster or when Miley Cyrus (you don’t know who that is but you will one day) confirms the type of lipstick she uses, words pertaining to that current event will be one of the Top Trends on the Trending Topics section. You can check the “Trending Topics” of any city, country, or the entire world. This is a great way of staying up-to-date on what is influencing the world at a specific point in time. Staying current is very important in the 21st century. Here in the future, being disconnected and uninformed is never a very good thing nor is it very exciting.
Now, hashtags. Yes. I mentioned it a couple sentences ago. Hashtags are very prominent in the Twitter world. If you didn’t already know, a hashtag is this little thing: #. On Twitter, people will put that little hashtag symbol before a specific word and suddenly it seems more important because it turns blue. When a word is turned into a “hashtag” in a tweet, if somebody sees your tweet and notices the hashtag, they can click on that word and it will take them to a page that shows all the other people tweeting that same word. You’d think it’s not very important, but it actually is. Say there was a tornado somewhere near your town and you didn’t hear anything about it, then you see somebody write about how terrified they are of “#tornadoes”. Since there is a hashtag in front of the word Tornado, you’ll be able to click on the word and it will take you to see what other people are saying about the word. You are taken to the specific word and suddenly you see a tweet that says “There was a huge natural disaster here in New York. #tornado #theysuck”. Now you know something very important that you didn’t know just two seconds ago.
The most important aspect of Twitter as a communication system is that anything you tweet can be seen by millions of other people (if it is so deserving) because of the options that are given to the world when you post a tweet. Any time you post a tweet on Twitter, beneath your tweet are three little buttons. The first button is the “reply button”. Somebody can click on this button and respond to what you said. This allows for open communication. Thankfully, nobody but those who “follow” both you and the person you are replying to can see your conversation. The next button is the “favorite button”. If you see a tweet on your Twitter timeline that you find interesting and want to be able to find easily later on, all you have to do is click this little star-shaped button and it will save the tweet to your “favorites” tab on your Twitter account. This way, you can check back on all the tweets you “favorited”.
But it’s the “retweet” button beneath your Tweet that introduces the greatest possibilities. When somebody “retweets” your tweet, the tweet will appear on the timelines of every person that follows them. This allows your tweet to spread all over the site. What a great way to find different connections with people that you never expected you would know. If people see a retweet of your tweet on their timeline and find it interesting, they might follow your account which ultimately means you gain a great following on the internet.
Twitter is one of the most current ways to analyze the opinions of the general public. During political debates between different politicians on TV, people often take to Twitter to share their opinions about it. Professionals can then analyze what is being said about both candidates by the majority of the people on Twitter. Like Facebook, Twitter is a great way to promote a business or product because it doesn’t matter how many people in the world are following you, anything you say still has the potential to be spread across the entire world. This is why so many popular icons of this modern world are involved with Twitter. It allows for the popularity of anything or anybody to expand universally.
Of course, like all things, our form of communication here in the 21st century has its faults. The biggest problem with 21st century communication is that it tends to drive us away from face-to-face communication which is psychologically concerning. As human beings, physical human interaction is an essential part of growing and staying alive. Often times, we get too comfortable with communicating behind a glass screen that we forget to sustain actual relationships with people in person. This hasn’t quite yet created a population of introverts and people who don’t know how to communicate face-to-face, mostly because we all still have jobs and must go to school which forces us to stay in touch with the physical side of one another.
Another problem with 21st century communication is that it gives us way too much time to think things through before we do or say them. Certainly this presents a lot of advantages, but you’d be surprised just how fabricated things have become because of it.
Nowadays, you can never be too sure that the person you are communicating with (over the internet) is who they say they are. Because of sites like Facebook and Twitter, we are able to communicate with people we’ve never even met without having to do any background checks. It’s unsafe and unnatural to say the least. Of course, times change and the world progresses so things will not always be like they are for you in the 19th century, but it’s still important that we keep in touch with the old-fashioned way of communicating.
If somebody posts a picture of his or herself on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else on this “world in the clouds”, they can edit it. They can make their skin a different color, change their hair, their eye color; all by the click of a button. This is how we behave nowadays. It seems like everybody is trying to be the perfect, stereotypical version of a human. Everything seems like a competition now, even in places it shouldn’t be. It makes sense that businesses and companies that are trying to make money would fight for superiority on the Internet, but it shouldn’t happen amongst human beings like it does nowadays.
Now, people can say and do anything without immediate consequence because we are all hiding behind a screen. This makes us think we are invincible and allows us to say things we would never say if we had to say them face-to-face.
Confrontation doesn’t exist like it used to, at least not as often. You’d think that because the majority of our conversations and relationships exist in a secular world where we are given as much time as needed to think up a phrase or response that it would encourage us to be wiser with our words. Instead, we have become more quick to respond and don’t use our brains like we should because we’re allowed to say things without being confronted immediately.
It doesn’t matter what era you live in, the world will always have its pros and cons. Communication here in the 21st century is drastically different in comparison to the era you’re living in, Ann, but both worlds are just as complicated as they are simple.
As long as communication is something that exists between human beings, it will always be important and it will always function properly regardless of its form. Likewise, anytime something involves humans, emotions and bad decisions will persist. So, if I had to advise you on whether or not you’d be better off living here in the future or where you are now, I don’t think I could tell you.
Humans are adaptable creatures which is why, regardless of what century we are living in, we find ways to make it work for us and we survive and thrive like we always have. Be happy with your 19th century life because it’s not worse nor is it better than the life I’m living here in the 21st century. The world changes because humans change and as long as our communication changes with us, we are in no trouble.
I hope you are thankful for the life you are living right now and I look forward to your response!
Happy holidays!
– Robbie S. Baker