The Ecology of Media

The telephone, or more importantly, the cellular telephone has emerged as one of the world’s most popular and successful technological advances in the past century. The cell phone can control many people’s lives, including mine. Echo Boomers like me are growing up having a cell phone from as early as the age of 10, or in some cases even younger. The strides that the cell phone has taken to become what it is today are great. When you think about it, the cell phone is supposed to be a telephone but portable (no kidding), strictly for audio conversation. However, look at what your cell phone can do. You are able to text, e-mail, check the score of the game, download and listen to music, take pictures, take videos and so on and so forth. The telephone is controlling the way we interact as a culture, and can be taken as a good or as a bad thing. Some may say that this is a negative thing because we as humans are becoming lazy and rely too much on our technology. Moreover I think this is not the case. I believe that this is shaping us as a culture for the better. We are able to instantly communicate to someone who is in China from Canada using a tiny piece of metal/plastic in our pocket. I look at it like this, if we are able to create such a powerful tool of communication, then we are bound to make the same kind of strides in medical advances.