Essay Example on Technology's Impact on Communication

Introduction

Communication is a crucial tool in human life as it is a means for the exchange of information and the facilitation of actions that humans undertake. However, communication is also impacted by contemporary issues in society, such as the advancement of technology. The following assignment will outline the main theme, highlights, and lessons from the provided reading and also state two questions for my classmates.

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Main Theme

The main theme in the reading is that things possess social life and interaction between nonhuman and human actors is essential in understanding global mobile communication. In the context of the model of the circuit of culture, material devices portray an articulation of the representation process as well as the identity, their production means, consumption pattern, and their regulation (Wilken, Goggin, & Horst, 2019).

Lessons

Mobile phones are often circulated through theft where ones were stolen or bought illegally or legally, and they are resold at lower prices. Phones are circulated through two primary cycles; insecurity and illegality(Wilken, Goggin, & Horst, 2019). Insecurity makes users live with violence and opt for cheaper alternatives to phones that are expensive while in the second cycle, police officers suppress illegal activities in the parallel market fed by thieves, users allow illegality and businesses disguise their activities or even sell illegal products openly(Wilken, Goggin, & Horst, 2019).

Technologically deterministic narratives mar the emerging technologies, and their future participation is also anticipated to play out in location ware futures (Wilken, Goggin, & Horst, 2019). Human awareness offers a means to compare human knowledge on location and technological knowledge. Trust is acquired through an understanding of everyday activity improvisatory modes (Wilken, Goggin, & Horst, 2019). Most people do not trust GPS. However, location-aware technologies, as well as data, participate as inevitably incomplete things in everyday processes (Wilken, Goggin, & Horst, 2019). Location awareness becomes configured, dispersed, and embodied in varying ways when people participate in technical-socio-environmental relations such as commuting.

Our everyday activities such as commuting are entangled with location-aware technologies that develop new modes of uncertainty in which people improvise countermeasures to implications of complicated socialites from the use of incomplete and inaccurate data(Wilken, Goggin, & Horst, 2019). It can, therefore, be argued that location technologies fail to offer a solution to the prevailing problems and are just entering an existing way of life for people in which they configure situations that they trust.

Questions for Classmate

People often acknowledge their lack of GPS. However, we find significant use in apps that use location ware technologies, which implies the use of the app in what one needs and, after that, relying on existing knowledge. Is it not obvious that location-aware technologies are the future?

We often unknowingly share location information despite many concerns on personal security. Since we need location awareness technology in our daily activities such as commuting, what safety measures are in place or should be in place to ensure data and personal security?

References

Wilken, R., Goggin, G., & Horst, H. A. (Eds.). (2019). Location Technologies in International Context. Routledge.