The new Age

In this day and age, everything is done on a computer. Weather your buying a cheese burger from McDonalds or booking a flight for a vacation it is all processed on a computer. Virtually every business in today's market has its own website to display its products or services to the world. So kids these days, all they know is the computer. If a kids wants a song, they download it, if they want a ring tone, they download it, if they want anything they go and download it. So this comic has a child asking his mother, was i downloaded. this is quite funny and an interesting observation.

Texting

Generation Z is the first generation to have lived their whole lives with computers, internet, and mobile phones. This can be a very positive thing, however, it can also be a very negative thing. In this cartoon a baby is portrayed to be writing a text message on a cell phone, and the caption reads. "He texted his first word!"

This is a humorous approach to the technology revolution. Now a days kids are getting mobile phones younger and younger. Kids that are 12 years old are getting cell phones. 10-15 years ago 50 year olds were getting their first cell phones. The world is changing rapidly, and this technology is targeted to younger and younger.

Innapropriate e-mail

This is a comical approach to a very prevalent issue. In many offices and work places people are using their work e-mail for unintended purposes. Work places offer their employees e-mail addresses so they can connect and stay in good communication with each other. However, many people in the work place will send e-mails to their fellow employees that do not help them connect or stay in good communication, but on the contrary, they distract them. Many people will spend company time trying to find jokes, and other funny pictures and things to send to their co-workers to make them laugh. This is not how e-mail was intended to be used, and this I believe will harm a work places productivity.

Virtual Workplace: When is it enough?

New technological advances have massively increased the responsibility of employees. Individual's roles in the workplace no longer end when they go home for the day, or as this cartoon portrays, even on their washroom break. Technology allows individuals to be in constant communication with their work and employers leaving them little time to themselves which can lead to massive increases in stress and employee burnout. There are advantages to this however: the incredibly fast communication of information, which in turn increases productivity.
So where should employers and individuals draw the line? Is productivity or personal health more important?

Personality Being Lost In Work Pace

The cartoon here illustrates the lack of face to face contact in the Workplace. It makes a humorous approach to the fact that a person being fired should be a personal interaction between an employee and his superior to be able to discuss the reasons for firing. The fact that the employee was unaware of the firing shows that certain things should not be done over the internet. The lack of communication between the two shows how firing should be done in a direct manner with the employee in question. Recently I watched the movie Up In The Air starring George Clooney and it depicts how the neccessity of firing in person remains the best way to ensure that the person in question isn't blindsided by the act and it can be discussed in a conversational manner in a private area. The movie was a great example about how the technology of firing over the internet while more efficient, still shouldn't be used because of the emotional reasons attached. Technology can greatly improve our speed of work but can not always be the best method of use.

The cartoon also shows how information can be lost over the internet and email. The superior in the situation thought that the employee would see the notice of firing and leave the workplace. However the message was lost or not seen and the employee remained working unaware of the termination of employment. The best way to ensure communication is delivered properly is to deliver the message in person. That way there is a far less chance of the message not being received properly.

It seems as though people use the internet or email as a way to escape the ackward situations that sometimes need to be made. Relationships can end over a text message or email. This is a persons way of escaping the realities of communicating with people. The same goes with the firing of an employee over a email. It shows a real lack of respect for employees and the maturity level of the superior.

IS THE NEW AGE OF DIGITAL LITERACY LEAVING PEOPLE BEHIND

Before computers or cell phones things were alot different on the communication side of things. To get a message across to someone you couldn't text message or email but instead called them or had face-to-face conversations.

So are the people of earlier days being left in the dust? Some are and some aren't. If you look around, many elderly people do have troubles with communicating with todays new technology and would rather talk face-to-face or on the telephone. Some have no clue how to text message or even work a computer.

But there are those tech-savi grandmas and grandpas that can text with the best of them. So the question of whether or not there are digitally literate elderly people is answered. For the most part they do not like these news ways of communication but some do.

I think it comes to the point where it is believed that the traditional ways of communicating were better and more personal than these new ones being introduced. Now a days kids are losing their face-to-face communication skills and are only comfortable when then talk to someone on the computer or through text messaging.

Is this what we want for the future of our world?

Communication

These are some of the many different ways to communicate with people today:

- Face-to-face

- Email

- Phones

- Text Messaging

- Letters

- Video

- T.V.

In companies the main three communication methods are phones, email, and face-to-face. Face-to-face is the most efficient. So why isn't everything done this way? Because email and phones are much quicker.

Although email is very quick, there are a lot of down sides to it. People can perceive different messages from the words that are said to the font it is written in. This can be a bad thing in work places.

Other down sides to emails are:

- Pressing send to soon.

- Sending a email to the wrong person.

- Having someone perceive an email negatively.