You Say Hello, I Say Text Me

Even one thousand miles away, I can still hear my father say those words that managed to mix together advice and reprimand. “You need to be a better communicator,” he would say over and over again as if I stood silent my entire childhood. However, what I have later realized is that his experience on Poster’s “superhighway” is much different than mine. He depended on the telephone and personal contact where I look to the imitation of the “telephone’s democratic structure, […the] Internet” and digital communication (535) as the easiest way to talk. Our experience seems worlds apart, but in reality is just a step to a faster digital world. Yet, I cannot help but sit back and wonder to what point do we reach too fast? Poster wrote “Postermodern Virtualities” back in 1995 where the Internet was still taking off and bringing us into the highway of information, but what would he think now, fifteen years later? Asking “will this technological change provide the stimulus for the installation of new media different enough from what we now,” I attempt an answer with the time gap in consideration.

I do not believe we have depended on a “second electronic media age,” but rather just as the telephone connection led the way to dial up, we continue to build. The Internet has progressed in so many ways compared to that which was seen in the nineties. Information is literally at our fingertips, on our cell phones, and communication has become that of video chat and social networking websites. While I love technology and its ability to connect me with the world, I cannot see past what is being lost with the speed. Poster writes that the “media […] detract[s] from familiar institutions - the family, the community, the state” and I truly believe he is right (536). When was the last time you could carry a real conversation without turning towards texting or Facebook chat? When was the last time you went to the community library to do research rather than an online database? I am sure some can say yesterday, but so many more would struggle in their answer. With every technological step we take forward, we lose something in personal interaction. You only can drive so far, go so fast, before we all need to exit off of the “superhighway,” but will it be too late?

On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work"