Essay Sample on Comparison Between Methods of Communication

Introduction

Communication has dramatically evolved over the past decades to the sophisticated and efficient way it is today. Before the invention of the telegraph in the 1800s, people first used smoke signals then letter writing. Smoke signals were limited in the range of messages that could be relayed as well as the distance within which the recipients could see the note. Bad weather also challenged the efficacy of this means of communication. People later realized that pigeons would fly for long distances to retrace lost mates. They utilized this opportunity to send messages. They would tie written notes on their legs and then release them, delivering messages over long distances. The use of pigeons was an unreliable means of sending messages in various ways. Predators and hunters would sometimes kill these pigeons before they gave notes. During other times, these pigeons would wander off and fail to deliver messages to the appropriate recipients. Letter writing was later used. It was efficient in the sense that they could be sent over long distances but limiting since they were slow. Letters would sometimes get lost in transit as well. In the 1800s, Samuel Morse invented the electric telegraph. This invention opened up the communication industry to more designs and milestones.

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The Invention of the Telegraph

The telegraph was invented, reinvented and perfected in various stages. Samuel Morse invented the electric telegraph after the failure of an earlier design of the non-electric transmitter, the semaphores, by Claude Chappe in 1794. The semaphore consisted of several stations that were strategically constructed on hilltops. Each of these stations had large movable hands that would signal messages in the form of letters or numbers. The people at the recipient station would use telescopes to read what the sender was trying to indicate. This method of communication, just like the smoke signals was disadvantaged by lousy weather and misinterpretation. The invention of the electronic telegraph overcame this problem. The electric telegraph enabled quick transmission of messages over long distances (Carey & James 305). The transmitter was used to send morse code to a receiving device that would then be decoded and typed up in plain text. Within a decade of building the first commercial telegraph machine, people constructed thousands of miles of cable throughout the United States. This construction opened the country up to international news and communication. The telegraph system invented by Samuel Morse is not in use today (Carey et al. 305). It, however, led to the development of useful technology like the wireless telegraphy, now known as radiotelegraphy that is vital for communication today, especially for military operations. This development enabled the rapid growth of faster means of communication technology.

The Telephone

The telephone was the other greatest invention in the history of communication. Its design is attributed to two men, Antonio Meucci, and Alexander Graham Bell. Alexander is however recognized as the father of the telephone since he developed the first practical telephone that could transform electric signals into sound. It was later commercialized and installed in thousands of homes. Cables connected all these homes (Gorman & Michael 592). Phone revolutionized communication. It was fast and efficient. People could relay messages over long distances within seconds. The continents were more connected than before. Efficient communication promoted other sectors such as transport and trade. An example is a constant communication between the vessels at sea which enabled transmission of danger warnings such as storms and pirates. Invention and commercialization of the telephone, therefore, one of the most significant milestones in the history of communication technology (Chou & Philip 41).

Mobile phones were another historical development in communication technology that was perfected over decades. Attempts in the making portable mobile devices began in the early 1900s by people like Professor Albert Jahnke and the Oakland Transcontinental Aerial Telephone and Power Company. The tools made back then were bulky and barely portable. They were messy and used up too much power. They were therefore not economically feasible. The first company to produce a portable and well-functioning mobile phone was Motorola in the 1970s. Motorola later commercially produced mobile phones and put them in the American market in early 1980s (Chou & Philip 41). There have been rapid advancements since then. The 1G analog cellular systems used in these devices has evolved widely, first into the 2G digital system and later the 3G mobile broadband was developed. This mobile broadband, together with the more recent 4G and 5G cellular mobile networks have revolutionized the communication technology in tremendous ways.

Smartphones developed since the 1990s have further revolutionized communication in unimaginable ways. These mobile phone devices are installed with applications necessary for everyday life and have more popular each day. From cameras, calculators, calendars, work out applications, these devices have been engineered to cater for almost all aspects of our daily routines. These devices have the most incredible speeds and artificial intelligence that has made the world a global village. Smartphones are easy to use and have gained popularity over the years. In 2019, smartphone subscribers are estimated to be about 2.5 billion worldwide, including the elderly. Technological modifications to these phones have enabled design changes to suit people with special needs (Okuda, Shizue 3). These include Sidekick 3 smartphones for people with severe hearing loss, Snapfon EZ One for people with poor vision, among others. From sending text messages, making international calls and even video calls, the smartphone has become the single greatest invention of the 21st century in the communication sector.

The Internet

For a long time before the invention of the internet, people dreamed of a time when many computers would be interconnected to form some superhighway of information. Before the internet era, data was only stored in individual computers and external storage devices like the external hard drives. The first external hard drive was designed by an IBM engineer Reynold B. Johnson, who IBM 350 disc file, which only supported the IBM 305 RAMAC computer system. His technology and design were then widely adopted and renovated to produce the much smaller hard drives with large storage capacities of more than one terabytes. Other storage devices included compact disks and videocassettes. The only way of information exchange between computers back then was establishing physical connections between the computers by use of cables. It was therefore not possible to connect many computers over long distances.

The idea of the internet was first made a reality in the late 1960s. This is with the creation of the ARPANET. This was the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, which was funded by the United States Department of defense. ARPANET was designed to use packet switching to enable several computers to share information over a single network. Advancements and changes were made to this model (Lukasik & Stephen 15). An example was the development of the Internet Protocol and the Transmission control protocol that was even adopted by ARPANET in the early 1980s. The most significant milestone in the history of the internet was made in the early 1990s when Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist invented the World Wide Web (WWW). His goal was to bring together the evolving computer technology, hypertexts and data networks from various scientists in different institutions and laboratories (Nupur 8096). All this was the journey of the internet to being the way we know it today.

Advancements have been continuously done to the internet to make it efficient in serving its purpose. Millions of terabytes of information are stored on the internet today. These are accessed via URLs. Anything can be searched on the web using search engines like Google. Communication has been made fast and efficient (Lukasik & Stephen 8). The use of the internet has boosted businesses. This is through factors such as advanced research, efficient communication and even product motivation and advertisement on the internet. It has also promoted research and advancements in the field of biomedical technology by bringing together scientists from all over the world to speak in one voice. The internet, through emails and other messaging platforms, has fostered global social growth.

The Fax

The fax was a system of sending messages over long distances and has been modified over the years since its invention in the 1840s. The fax system was invented by a Scottish physicist and clockmaker known as Alexander Bain. The fax was designed to send scanned-in text or images in the form of printed material in the form of electric signals. These signals would then be received by a telephone number connected to a printer, and the message would be decoded and the document printed out. Back then, the information would be transmitted through the existing phone lines (Gorman & Michael 590). It was slow but efficient. It enabled sending of documents over long distances.

The fax system is still in use today in various places. An example is offices and corporate setups. This system has however been modified to be compatible with the current technological trends in the communication industry. It has been configured to transmit messages via the internet as well as repurposed to enable multiple recipients of a document at the same time. Fax is a preferred means of document transmission due to its safety and efficiency.

Broadcast Media

There are different ways of sending messages to many people at once. In the past, people used smoke signals to send a message to many people. This, however, had its downsides. This included misinterpretation of info, challenges of communication during low visibility weather among others. The most efficient way of sending messages to millions of people in the present is through broadcast media. This is a way of immediate sharing of information to broad audiences using various methods of communication such as television, podcasts, radio, and digital journalism (Chou & Philip 41). Podcasts are digital audio files that are uploaded on the internet in series and available for downloading by subscribers. Digital journalism is a form of journalism where the editorial content is made available on the internet, without print media such as magazines or newspapers. Through broadcast media, millions of people can be reached within a brief time. Messages that are sent through broadcast media include product advertisements, disaster warnings such as hurricanes, news, among others.

Conclusion

Methods of communication have evolved over centuries to become the way we know them today. From smoke signals to the sophisticated communication technology used today, thousands of technicians and other professionals have helped shape the communication industry become as efficient as it is today. Through the years, methods of communication such as the telegraph, the telephone, internet, and fax have been invented and reinvented to increase speeds, safety, and efficiency. Messages can now be sent over millions of miles in a few seconds thanks to inventions such as the internet and mobile phones. Massive amounts of data can now be accessed from any part of the world through the internet. Broadcast media has made it possible to disperse information to large audiences in a short time. Examples of broadcast media include television. Radio, podcasts and digital journalism. Communication between people has been enhanced,...