The underlying question that many people have about communication technology is tough to answer. Has the advent of all this new advancement in communication technology actually made people’s lives easier? Because time machines do no exist yet, the exact answer can’t be discovered right now. There are many experts that render their opinion and try and find out if new forms of communication technology are helping society or hurting it.

There are plenty of good uses for technology like the internet like email for example. Tons of people take advantage of this instant form of communication instead of using “snail mail” like in the olden days. The email applications now have the ability to send the same email to thousands of people with a click of a button.  The fact that people are using the internet instead of mailing also helps the environment by cutting down on waste. Large amounts of paper are saved every time a company sends and email to it’s employees instead of faxing them all letters. Other simple applications that computers have made possible are things like storing all one’s music in Itunes, or creating a personnel video in Windows Movie Maker. Simple things like this help to make people’s lives easier. 

Back in the time before word processors, people would type letters on a type writer. If they made a mistake, they would have to use white out or tape off the mistake and correct it. Now with our latest advancements, people can do everything from spell check to print thousands of copies of their work. This is an obvious reason why so many people feel that these systems are beneficial to own and use. 

Gerard Noonan, the social issues editor at Digital Life.com thinks that these word processing systems are depleting people’s ability to hand write things. Children are experiencing this the worst at these cross roads of computer education. 

“The disjunction between the acquired skill of keyboarding and the need to handwrite exams has led some schools to incorporate handwriting lessons in years 11 and 12 as students find they have to relearn the art of using a pen and paper quickly - lost after years of using computers, laptops and mobiles.” (Noonan,shm.com)                      What Noonan is saying is that children these days are not even learning hand writing skills to the extent that children in the past have. Tests like the SAT require intense writing segments that unless one has a proven disability, must be turned in hand written.   The State Examination Commission out of Dublin, Ireland said in a report that in many cases, teenagers seemed “unduly reliant on short sentences, simple tenses, and a limited vocabulary” and that with the use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, it’s the beginning to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing, not to mention oral communication. This phenomenon is becoming more and more popular with younger people around the world mostly due to new “text message priority phones” with full keyboard features and large layouts. 

Phones and PDA’s are becoming very addicting says PC magazine. “You’ve probably heard the term “cracberry.” (Deleo,PC mag) They say society has started to compulsively check their email, even at negligent times like on vacation with the family. Personal attention that could be going towards one’s family and friends is now going to a hand held device and many people don’t even realize is happening. Many new phones have the capability to surf the web at high rates of speed and allow applications like Facebook and Myspace to be stored on each device. This is becoming a large scale problem in schools across the United States. Dr. Claire Summers, an associate professor at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia said in a Oct. 5 press release that there's an ongoing battle between teachers and students over classroom cell phone use that “has become a substantial problem.” (Summers, Associatedcontent.com) She said that the students who are continually distracted by cell phones are unable to engage in the class as fully as others. An article by associatedcontent.com reviewed an argument that was debating on whether or not to fully ban cell phone use in schools. While several teachers gave their opinions, a fourth grade teacher from Arizona said cell phones “should absolutely be banned from school. They are nothing but a disruption to class instruction.” She believes that “if a student is waiting for a call for example, they think about nothing but receiving that call, therefore blocking out anything that is being said, and it’s simply not a necessity for being successful in school”  Another teacher in Pennsylvania said that “cell phones and other electronic devices can be a distraction, but students need to learn when and where a cell phone can be appropriate...This is one of those life lessons we can teach them. Technology is a wonderful and useful tool when used properly.” 

Is technology in communication making people’s lives easier? Even though the truth may not exist as one concrete answer, it is safe to say that it varies with situations and the use of personal responsibility. Anything can be rendered bad if used to often and technology is no different. Society must find a way to responsibly limit it’s use and if accomplished, technology can be a very helpful tool but if ignored, society can grow self centered and distracted.