My Experiences with Communication Technologies / Week 3

Hello again,
Today we have been asked to consider life without the advanced communication technologies experienced everyday, and how these technologies effect everyday communication and life.
Well obviously concerning technology, society has advanced in an enormous, almost unbelievable way, I’m sure that 50 years ago people were unable to imagine that what is happening now within the communication and information culture would be occurring. I found this was very evident as I watched the short filme La Jette in the lecture last week, the shapr images and commentary are quite different to the flowing movies viewed today. To be completely honest, I don’t know how I would survive without my mobile, it is my life, my world, my passion. Of course as soon as I buy a new one I am completely obsessed for about a week until the newer model comes out and I work extra shifts so I can save up for it. I go through at least $30 credit per month and send/receive at least 10 text messages each day. With Vodafone I have a deal where I can call any mobile or home phone after 8pm for FREE!! That’s right free of charge, no clams spent. Also, where I live, I don’t have a landline, so all contact with my family (whom I miss like crazy) is done through my mobile. On top of all this communication, I have about 100 contacts stored on my phone, with home numbers, mobile numbers, email addresses etc. So GOD FORBID if I was to lose my phone, alot of valuable information would go along with it, along with my source of communication with family and friends.
So now that we all understand that I could not survive without my mobile, I feel obliged to discuss another new technology which has become my new best friend since starting university. The Internet. During high school I mainly used the internet to chat with friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends into the late hours of the night, giving me the ability to say things to people I would never say in person ( by the way, I cant decide whether I believe that is a good or bad thing). Occasionally I would use it to do homework, however I often found myself searching topics of interest within Google and Wikipedia. Also, I have been talking to someone on MSN messenger for about a year now and have never met him in person. We 'met' through a mutual friend, and 'talking' to him on messenger without knowing him in person effects the things we discuss. Relationships over the internet, in my opinion, are very significantly different ... not in a bad or good way ... than in-person relationships.
Now that I have started University the internet has opened up many new doors for me and we have found ourselves on a completely new level of our relationship. The internet is basically the only means of communication I have with my tutors, lecturers and other staff at the uni. Email is considered THE way in which we as students are informed of important occurrences (such as room changes, assessment items etc) so if you don’t check your student email at least once per day, well, its not good. Also, the copious amounts of assignments means that instead of spending late hours talking to friends on messenger, I am getting continually frustrated with academic search engines and there inability to find the perfect journal article. I still use Google and Wikipedia to promote many obsessions, however not as often these days.
I recently set up a 'myspace' which I use alot to make and receive comments about and from my friends.
So life without new communication technologies, in my case, would be impossible, however my dad who claims he was born 20 years too late has absolutely no interest in Mobile phones or the internet, and lives a perfectly sane life. I guess you just don’t know what you're missing out on until you've got it!
I have been using the internet and my mobile phone for about 6 years, and cant imagine surviving without them now!! The reason I started using these technologies was to communicate with friends and family, and even though I still do that with these technologies, I have found myself using the internet more and more for research purposes.
New communication Technologies has significantly affected everything in my life and the world today, that’s why I think it is so important to be doing this course. :)