Your attention is called to “Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular” on page 1 of the New York Times for January 20, 2008.
This is the most extreme example I have encountered of the phenomena discussed in last year’s annual symposium.
It’s hard to deny the results of this approach to communications. That is, the needs of the parties in the communication are being satisfied. And, in the end, isn’t that the aim of communications?
That conventions are being changed is, I’m afraid, the inevitable result of the release of new methods amongst significant numbers of people who are unafraid and are motivated to explore Frost’s “road not taken.”
New rules are an irresistible force and we need to find a way, as those who have preceded us have had to do (e.g., consider the developments in communications over the centuries), to come to some accommodation with these new practices.
Transformation in communication will undoubtedly accelerate. This accelerated change and its “tipping points” will lead to miscommunication, the subject of this year’s symposium. Managing change and its attendant outcomes thus becomes critical as “new speak” (I think I picked this up from Orwell.) continually influences our lives.
At the risk of inflaming passions, let me advance the notion that we must be on guard against becoming the Luddites of language.
On this note…PBS Frontline recently aired a program titled: “Growing up Online.”
There wasn’t much there that we did not know about, and it is mostly relevant
to students much younger than ours. It argued that the generational gap created
by the Internet revolution is greater than any previous one. One of the things that
did surprise me a little was that a lot of students think that e-mail is an antiquated
way to communicate and they use text message instead, or use other forms of quick communication. In one of the segments, teachers talked about how difficult it is for them to catch up with web savvy students.You can watch the full program online here.
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