In Clarke’s chapter on communication, he states that “The medium of signals inevitably feeds back into the form of messages.” The practical outworkings of this statement could not be more obvious when we look at our current society. On a whole, the general sentiment that communication technology changes communication content is an increasingly relevant topic for discussion.

The prevalence of communication-related technology has significantly affected how and what we communicate. First of all, we communicate more frequently and must consume a greater volume of communication. In fact, we frequently consume multiple sources of communication at once (perhaps listening to the news, and texting at the same time). As a result, we must adapt the form of our messages. In many circumstances, it is necessary to be concise and to the point, as the sheer pace of these digital communication methods necessitates a streamlined approach. In some ways, it can force humans to become more robotic, and less emotive. For example, if you write a long email, you can expect that it might not be read in its entirety, or at least might take a while till it is read. Furthermore, some communication methods, like twitter, actually put explicit restrictions on the number of characters that can be used. Undoubtedly, this has changed how we assemble the content of our messages.

The widespread adoption of this technology has affected our vocabulary. Increasingly, abbreviations and other foreign symbols (like #) become part of the language and the words that we use to communicate. In addition, the rate with which new terms are adopted increases, as a large percentage of the population can be exposed to a new term or word in a relatively short period of time.

Unfortunately, this has probably exacerbated our problems with regards to shortening attention spans. We grow bored (or lose focus) when the messages being communicated are lengthy, complicated and dense. We grow used to consuming information from sources which water-down complex phenomenon. In some cases, I think that this can diminish one’s ability to think critically unless we are diligent to combat these tendencies. A decade ago, it would probably be difficult to imagine that a politician could win an election while communicating meaningless soundbites (albeit with unparalleled media coverage) with no real informational meat, or substantive reasoning. However, we have been conditioned to process information in a different way due to the sheer volume of what is available. Clearly, it is important to ask ourselves, is it really a good idea to spend our time trying to know a little about everything, while potentially sacrificing the opportunity to understand some things in greater depth?

http://www.smh.com.au/world/politics-are-just-too-important-for-social-media-20170112-gtqkv6.html