Rusty Saber: High-tech communication has pitfalls

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It was like coming out of retirement for an hour. I was asked to present a lecture to a group meeting at Drury University, the institution where I taught before I retired. My lecture generally approached the topic of communication in the 21st century. Since I spent much of the second half of the 20th century as a communication professor, I suppose I ought to have some notion as to how people will communicate with one another in the new century.|ret||ret||tab|

I think it's fair to say that the driving force in the 20th century was technology. When the century began, the horse was the major means of personal transportation; the railroad being the mass transit system, a far cry from the century's end with automobile traffic gridlock, jet travel and rockets to the moon and beyond. In 1901 the telegraph was the major technologically enhanced communication device. Today we are immersed in communication technology that would have boggled the 19th century American mind. These include the telephone, fax, radio, communication satellites, television, computer and the resulting Internet and e-mail.|ret||ret||tab|

At the end of this century, communication technology has soared far beyond what anyone could have predicted 40 years ago, when the first computer filled an entire room and had virtually no power when compared to the 5-year-old laptop computer on which this column was typed. Internet technology has opened up a vast universe of information and communication experiences that grows almost daily as new technologies come on line. Satellite technology enables cable and direct satellite TV users to spend 24 hours a day surfing the Internet and channel surfing. If there is something not available on the Internet and TV outlets, I can't imagine what it is. The proliferation of TV news and talk shows hashing and rehashing political and social issues means we don't need to discuss issues with each other, TV and the Internet can help us make up our minds.|ret||ret||tab|

Anyone who believes we have reached the limits of technologies that have ushered in the Information Age hasn't been paying attention to the rapid high-tech advancement. We have become a "dot-com" society. We've only just begun.|ret||ret||tab|

While researching the aforementioned lecture, I read that technology would soon be in place to enable cell phones to be hooked up to the Internet. Before time for the lecture arrived, it was announced that "soon" is now; the technology is here. I don't know about you, but the thought of people who talk on cell phones while driving in heavy traffic also being on the Internet, is indeed a chilling one. |ret||ret||tab|

The most requested service of airline passengers is airborne e-mail. The word is that it will soon be available on commercial airlines.|ret||ret||tab|

Constant Internet companionship is the aim of Mark Dean, of IBM, a major developer of the personal computer (No, Al Gore invented the Internet, not the PC), who is working on a computer that will make the PC obsolete. Called the "dream pad," Dean's device will be the size of a magazine, with a 24-hour battery; it will be inexpensive, programmable and voice activated, doing everything a PC does, and will do it with no wires. Dean says he wants to "give people the tools to get any information they want anytime, anywhere." Since Dean holds three of the nine original personal computer patents, I assume he will deliver the goods.|ret||ret||tab|

I'm not a technologically illiterate mossback who yearns for those thrilling days of yesteryear before the computer upset the status quo; the computer is a wonderful device. The Internet is a boon to the shopper (with credit card in hand), serious researcher and the just plain inquisitive. It opens up an amazing new world to all of us.|ret||ret||tab|

My concern is how 21st century people will interact with each other when technology will provide us with more information than we can possibly use and will send electronic messages to anyone, anywhere, any time who happens to have an e-mail address.|ret||ret||tab|

Someday technology might make obsolete human, face-to-face communication. I, for one, hope not. How about you?|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)[[In-content Ad]]