The term communication comes from the Latin word "communis," which means to share. Its contextual meaning is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior. Generally, communication requires a sender, a message, and a recipient, although the receiver does not need to be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication. Hence, communication can also occur across distances in time and space. Furthermore, it requires that the communicating parties share an area of commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver has also understood the message of the sender – this is called feedback in another sense.
Communication has been around since the earlier times. Humans have been communicating with each other through sounds that form words, paintings, and actions. There have been evidences of this inside caves, large rocks, and tree barks. Fossils were also found to authenticate that humans really do have this higher function as rational beings. Furthermore, this function also defines us and separates us from all the other living creatures in the world.
Aside from the methods mentioned earlier, smoke signals and some animals were used to send the message across distances like a pigeon or a hawk. Of course, it would be inconvenient now if we still used the same ways of communicating with each other. Also, imagine the danger of getting burned while you are trying to tell someone from afar your message by using smoke signals. That would be very problematic and difficult.
So, to help humans with these issues, science and technology have helped create more efficient ways of communicating in the form of devices. As with time, they too have evolved.
Telephones were one of the first inventions. They were only used for calling another person. But now, they are equipped with various applications and features such as taking pictures and connecting to the internet. Other devices include the computer, the television, cellular phones, and other gadgets. This makes the world a much smaller place because it is now possible for anyone to know someone in other locations.
Furthermore, communication aids can give a voice to those who are voiceless like the deaf and the mute and those with general mobility difficulties like in cerebral palsy. However, theirs are unique and have more applications. Devices used by these particular people may be simple and designed just to enhance speech output, such as amplifiers. Or they may be more complex, such as communication aids or laptops using communication software, which are designed to augment speech. To explain further, augmentative and alternative communication aids (AAC) work through a series of pictures, symbols and words to produce sentences of synthesized speech. These devices are particularly used by people with severe mobility problems as mentioned previously. What is more, mobile or adapted telephones can also facilitate communication. For instance, a deaf person might use texting to confirm appointments or to receive messages. Much of the equipment available to assist communication is electronic and uses synthesized speech. In addition, non-electric boards or books that use pictures, symbols and words may be used by those who have speech, hearing, and mobility difficulties.
Also, many educational institutions depend on email, another method of communication, to keep their staff and students well informed of current events and in cases of an emergency. Also in such cases, communication devices can be of great use to send out information to a large amount of people in a short period of time.
Indeed, communication devices have proven their worth in our time because they made our lives easier and more convenient. Want to know more, go to Bing Lee now.
