The New CT Ch 1: Comm in the Modern Era

I've long appreciated and anticipated the convergence of more and more technology. This topic was briefly touched upon in chapter one. One can only imagine that far enough in the future, rather than tv, radio, computer and telephone, we'll have mulit-media stations, and we'll probably have a few of them scattered throughout the house. The basic PC is evolving into such a device. You can hear radio broadcast from around the globe (I have not heard that advertised as much any more. I think I heard somewhere that it was too cost prohibitive, but the capabilities are certainly there) and more phone companies are using the internet, like Vonage and Charter. Then we have those adorable ovoo commercials. How cool is that? Although I must admit, I have no idea how well it works and I have not checked out the site myself.

But all these convergences lead into another point of chapter one (and the course), who's listening and watching us do all this? The movements and habits of an individual are fairly easy to track over the internet. As we begin to rely almost solely on internet programs for information transfer that means we are probably being watched and tracked all the more. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

All this available tracking could make it much easier to catch criminals. Obviously no one likes too much government control and I'm not advocating we all get chip implants in our thumbs to clock in at work, swipe like a credit card at the store or unlock our house, but it would be handy to turn on my kitchen mulit-media screen and see where my kids are.

One more subject I would like to touch upon: censorship. like so many other government programs or institutions it started out with the people's best interest in mind. You may cry 'first amendment" and that you have the right to express yourself as you see fit, but I may say it's not fit for anybody. I'm thinking as a parent here. I am very cautious of what my kids see and hear on TV (and other media). I'm not just talking about cartoons, but if they're in the same room and a prime time program starts to get too racy, I change the channel. I look up, and sure enough, they're staring at the TV instead of coloring like they were two minutes ago. It is within my ability to further censor what they see and I appreciate that the government helps to ensure the media isn't any more audacious than it already is during prime time. Of course I can't censor everything from them forever, but for now I'm censoring as much as I can so I can decide when and what they're exposed to it. To me, some level of censorship is a necessary evil. Everyone, even little kids, are very in tune with multiple media outlets.