8.3 Communication and Technology - College Success | OpenStax

Evolution and Impact of Communication Technology

Over a billion individuals utilize chat rooms, mailing lists, instant messengers, social network services, newsgroups, games, wikis, and blogs to foster social relationships and coordinate collective action. Modern digital media links people, information, events, and places, transforming traditional frameworks of education, interpersonal relationships, and community interaction.

Technological advancement continually transitions from simple to complex tools. Historical communication instruments evolved sequentially from the telegraph to landlines, cordless telephones, and handheld cellular phones, culminating in Internet-enabled smartphones that fundamentally restructured personal interaction. Furthermore, emerging modalities such as augmented reality (AR) represent the next evolution in replacing traditional interfaces (such as paper roadmaps), altering practices ranging from the study of anatomy and culinary preparation to object assembly.

Technology functions as an extension of the human mind. As Sherry Turkle noted in Alone Together (2011):

“Now we know that once computers connected us to each other, once we became tethered to the network, we really didn’t need to keep computers busy. They keep us busy.”

Core Netiquette Guidelines

Netiquette constitutes the behavioral code of honor and standard of etiquette required when interacting across digital channels. Crucial practices for respectful communication include:

  • Avoiding ALL CAPS: Writing in all capital letters is interpreted online as shouting or vocal aggression.

  • Refraining from Mockery: Making fun of others degrades discourse and damages relationships.

  • Apologizing Promptly: Acknowledging misunderstandings quickly helps de-escalate tension when statements are misconstrued.

  • Signaling Subjective Opinions: Employing standard abbreviations such as IMHO (in my humble opinion) tempers bold assertions and mitigates hostile reactions.

  • Compensating for Missing Nonverbal Cues: Because digital text strips away vocal inflections, hand gestures, and facial expressions, words must be chosen deliberately to convey intended nuances.

  • Adapting Familiarity to Context: Respecting audience expectations dictates adjusting tone and degrees of informality appropriately.

Communication Standards in College Environments

Higher education settings impose rigorous expectations on communicative exchanges. Interactions across official channels—including learning management systems (LMS), online discussion boards, and college-affiliated social media pages for teams and clubs—require heightened civility.

Key academic communication parameters include:

  • Evidence-Based Debate: Course discussion forums (such as in political science courses) encourage academic disagreement. However, arguments must rely on reason and evidence rather than assertive emotional outbursts or ad hominem attacks.

  • Scope of Conduct Policies: College codes of conduct generally encompass all member interactions, regardless of whether they transpire within physical campus facilities or on external digital platforms. Threatening, offensive, or inappropriate statements carry severe institutional consequences.

  • Staff and Faculty Correspondence: Professional or semi-formal conventions should always be observed when addressing college personnel, utilizing formal address greetings, clear explanations, and complete sentences.

  • Peer Collaboration Dynamics: Unilateral communication can impair cooperative group work. In group project scenarios where responsibilities must be distributed, assigning roles prematurely, using ALL CAPS, or assigning lower-visibility tasks (such as recording secretary) without consensus causes alienation and team dysfunction.

Howard Rheingold’s Five Social Media Literacies

Howard Rheingold, who coined the term “virtual community” in 1993, introduced the framework of “mindful participation” in Net Smart: How to Thrive Online (2012). Rheingold posits:

“Whether digital media will be beneficial or destructive in the long run doesn't depend on the technologies, but on the literacy of those who use them.”

To retain autonomy, reduce stress, and maximize efficiency, digital communicators cultivate five core literacies:

  • Attention: The fundamental building block of cognition. Due to the mind’s natural tendency to wander, conscious focus must be cultivated against perpetual distractions, such as handling incoming push notifications during lectures or academic study sessions.

  • Participation: Moving past passive consumption to active digital engagement. Participation ranges from low-threshold actions (liking posts, leaving comments, responding to surveys) to content creation (blogging, publishing videos), as well as mandatory interaction with course-specific platforms like attendance software and homework portals.

  • Collaboration: Leveraging network technologies to accomplish tasks unachievable by individuals alone. Manifestations include rapid peer-to-peer mobilization during crises (e.g., using Twitter to coordinate emergency shelter during the Paris bombings or sharing real-time storm data), collective corporate intelligence (e.g., crowdsourcing new flavors for Coke), and distributed mutual aid (e.g., GoFundMe campaigns for medical care).

  • Network Awareness: Recognizing how technological topologies multiply human social capacity. This literacy involves consciousness regarding who is invited into one's informational ecosystem and understanding how external individuals, such as strangers commenting within shared digital threads, exert emotional and intellectual influence.

  • Critical Consumption: Discerning fact from fiction through methodical evaluation. Users must verify claims, inspect author credentials, validate original sources, and confirm factual accuracy prior to accepting or redistributing information, bridging directly into Information Literacy.

Challenges of Modern Communication Technologies

While digital networks expand relational reach, technological mediation introduces notable operational hurdles:

  • Deficit of Nonverbal Signals: Communication via written text deprives communicators of body language and vocal tone, significantly elevating the risk of semantic misunderstandings compared to voice or face-to-face interaction.

  • Relational Displacement: Constant immersion in mobile screens impedes spontaneous engagement with immediate physical surroundings and diminishes opportunities to initiate new offline relationships.

  • Addictive Potential: Excessive reliance on platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter can generate compulsive behavioral patterns. Several researchers assert that dependency on social networking platforms can exceed the addictive severity of alcohol or cigarettes.

  • Information Acceleration and Misinformation: The rapid velocity of news across platforms like YouTube, IGTV, and Facebook necessitates strict factual discernment using verification methodologies (such as those outlined by The Verge) to prevent the propagation of unsubstantiated rumors.