by Nathan Rogers

Created on: April 16, 2008

Some time back I took part in an unintentional demonstration of how mobile phones are affecting and changing the art of communication. I grew up in a household with four kids. When it was time for dinner whoever was downstairs would yell to the others upstairs that dinner was ready. For us this was our art of communication conducted at the top of our lungs. Fast forward to the much more recent past, after being laid off from my job my fiance and I were staying with some family members. Dinner was ready and my fiance was in the back bedroom and rather than raise my voice I reached for my mobile and gave her a call. No more yelling or walking across the house to pass a message. A simple mobile phone call did the trick.

The mobile phone has made a significant change to the noise level in many homes just like mine. My fiances family does the same thing. Rather than create a lot of noise yelling, they simply grab their mobile phone. Now I should mention that if you are staying with family members of much greater age (i.e. I was staying at my grandmothers house at the time) this new method may not go over so well. In fact it was more like a lead balloon. Without the helium. Suffice to say both my fiance and I were forced to promise to no longer call each other while in the same house, or at least in my grandmothers house!

The mobile phone has become such a common communication device that many of us feel naked and isolated without it. Our entire lives are contained within it and its almost as if we cannot communicate without it. Mobile phones have taken the art of conversation to an entirely different playing field. Some might argue this is not a good thing.

With the mobile phone, the art of conversation has mobilized and become a quieter thing. While yes face to face communication still takes place, the mobile has become our lifeline to the world. Now we can communicate with anyone, at anytime, from anywhere. It is true that the art of communication has changed and has done so rapidly, but it has actually increased our interaction time. When we relied on landline phones to talk to distant relatives, we would only call them on special occasions due to the considerable charges for long distance. Now with a mobile phone the only restriction is how many minutes we have available or maybe the time of day, wait until after 7pm and no time restrictions at all. Thanks to my mobile and free night time minutes, I can talk to my family as often as I want for as long as I want. All I have to do is watch those pesky time zones.

The art of communication has indeed changed. It has expanded to allow us to talk to whoever we want, whenever we want. It has allowed us to maintain better communication and closer ties to those who are important to us.

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