De Jesus 1

Oscar De Jesus
Professor Azeem
Eng114B
26 February 2015
Communication
The growth of the Internet has supported the growth of communication between
individuals. Much of our traditional forms of communication have been made obsolete
and replaced by more convenient methods such as cell phones. Some might say the
Internet has gauged our train of thought by influencing our retention skills. Others might
argue on the Internets time consuming social networks. However, these replacements
convenience our lives today in areas like instant messaging or directions to a location via
Global Position System. Collectively, the Internet has bettered our communication since
the first generation of Internet users, the natives.
The birth of the Internet coined a new generation that Gasser and Palfrey refer to
as Digital Natives; the first to experience the dawn of the Internet. Digital Natives have
lived through the opportunities to excel our forms of communication. During these
opportunities, generations following the Digital Natives were exposed to improvements
in technology, which became a consuming attraction to some users. I am certain that
Gasser and Palfreys assumption comes from the amount of time we spend on technology
today. We refer to technology as casual items in our lives because of its facile usage. It
can perform all sorts of communications and can work at an incredible pace. We have
seen mail and letters become e-mails, the telegraph work its way into the cell phones we
use today, and early online bulletin boards become the social networks that are available

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to us through the Internet. All of these traditional values have been buffered and have
improved the quality of our societys ability to communicate with one another. Cell
phones make long distance calling possible by the dial of a few buttons, and social
networks are available for individuals without cell phones. Moreover, these forms of
communications acquire a high degree of quality performance: instant messaging, photo
messaging, voice messages, video message, etc. These advancements are most common
in cell phones such as the iPhone.
Communication via cell phones occurs in other forms instead of just standard text
messaging and standard phone calls. New innovations, like cell phone applications,
allows for new forms of communication via cell phone with mobile data. In a periodical
by Ryan Naraine, How Far Can Web Apps Take the iPhone? the idea of mobile
computing is introduced as a revolutionary movement (Naraine 18). The original
iPhone, first generation, was launched with basic applications that did not cross into
Internet domains. Naraine overshadows the world of technology we live in today, the
Digital Native era. The evolution of cell phones was sparked by small challenges against
wild ideas. The iPhone-DevCamp, an effort to exploit the iPhones capabilities, was
launched in hopes of further developing the basic functions of Apples products.
Today, we have applications that allow us to communication by video or social
network. Some of these applications are common: Twitter, Facebook, and Skype. Most
phones today are compatible with these applications making them accessible to almost
any user. Users can connect to the Internet with the push of finger, clicking applications
like Facebook. The simplicity in the application makes it easy to connect to millions of
other users and messaging one another is a simple process. Naraines periodical assessed

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the ambitious Digital Natives intentions to further develop the Internet. Some of these
ambitions led to new ideas where the Internet allows communication through several
methods like news sites, libraries and blogs.
A recent application that arose, Snapchat, has changed the way we communicate
with picture messaging. It functions as a short-term, one-time only picture messenger; it
is very privatized and allows you to share photos with any of your friends. I can vouch
for this through personal experience with the app on my cell phone. In some occasions,
they allow big events to obtain a spot in Snapchat users to view the event via videos and
pictures. It is an easy way to communicate the event in a small, efficient scale. As
previously mentioned, Snapchat and several other social networks provides an improved
form of communication. These social networks are available in several platforms such as:
phone, computer, table, and smart televisions.
Like cell phones, tablets and iPods became popular products because of its
technological advancement that did not carry around the chains of cell phone bills. Many
of these products have taken on the accessibility of online books. E-books are a
convenient form of literary works that is made possible through excelled technology.
Kindles are common e-readers go-to tablet. Cynthia Houstons Digital Books for
Digital Native, states digital books created exclusively for the Internet and the myriad
e-readers and mobile applications currently available online can provide children with
more flexibility for interacting with digital information (Houston 40). By removing the
hassle of heavy books or a constant search for good lighting, the E-reader community has
grown within the Digital Natives and is adopted as an alternative for physical books.
Simplicity is a simple explanation for Kindles or other tablets capability of handling E-

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books. These innovations have pushed our literary pursuit into an entirely foreign,
exciting realm.
Physical books, however, have not become a figment of our literary past. Like
Naraines article, Jenny Emanuel covers the transformation of libraries through
technological skills. Emanuels Digital Native Librarians, Technology Skills, and their
Relationship with Technology, performs research on how comfortable librarians, born
during the digital era, are with technology within their work environment (Emanuel 21).
Surprisingly, many of these librarians did not think of implementing technology in their
libraries let alone feeling comfortable with the technology they grew up with. As a result,
the research performed displays the Digital Natives low-level of ease with technology.
Yet, most of these librarians refer to these systems as a source of organization.
From my personal experience, the common library uses computers to organize
and maintain the innumerous book collections they own. Some use the Dewey Decimal
system, like my former high school, but some might use personally crafted systems;
Emanuels article interviews some librarians that benefitted from their childhood era
(Emanuel 30). Instead of using gigantic tables of books locations, technology has made
it easy for librarians to communicate their collections of books and their whereabouts to
individuals. Once again, the Digital Natives have triumphed over time-consuming
methods of organization for their work field.
Another work field that has benefitted from the Internet is Biomedical
Engineering. This career focuses on connecting diseases to unique genes found in the
human body in order to discover a way to suppress or eliminate that disease along with
the gene. During this process, creating a drug requires discovering or uncovering the

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solution through research. The Connectivity Map project is an effort to connect the
relationships between gene, drug, and disease via online maps, which are made available
for other researchers to reference for their own work (Lamb 55). Like an academic search
engine, the connectivity map serves a purpose: simplify the process of sharing works with
one another just like Google or Wikipedia. These search engines have radically changed
our ability to access information instantly.
Search engines have grown into the Internet and become highly convenient
applications on cell phones, or on the World Wide Web. Whats most convenient about
these search engines is that it connects you to other peoples work in a fraction of a
second by simply inputting a topic or question. There is no need for the time-consuming
search required for referencing books. As mentioned previously, highly qualified scholars
refer to these search engines from time to time. In a study by Terry Judd and Gregor
Kennedy, a group of biomedical engineers were asked on their usage of search engines,
like Wikipedia and Google, for school and career purposes. What they found was a
similarity among the students where they felt that expediency was the quickest method of
completing their objectives (Gregor and Kennedy). In general, Biomedical Engineers
found themselves less likely to refer to a school library when required. Unlike the
Connectivity Map, these search engines provide millions of authors works the ability to
connect to an innumerable amount of people. In some occasions, these search engines
work quickly that we might become too comfortable with their capabilities.
Google is the one of the most popular search engines used by our Internet
community. We have used its universal power to feed us quick bits of information so
much that we have adopted the noun as a verb in our daily jargon. Dick Kasers,

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Breaking All The (Editorial) Rules, explains the phenomena of using google with a
lower case g which infers its transformation from a noun to a verb; it can be found in
the Merriam Websters Collegiate Diction, (The Oxford English Dictionary) (Kaser).
Our abuse of this extraordinary technology, the Internets search engineers, gauges our
idea of communication where we give little meaning to acquiring new knowledge. Our
quick go-to searches on Google are most likely information that we need in that moment,
and, as a result, we quickly forget that piece of information that we required. Essentially,
Google is making us lazier by giving us a solution that requires little to no effort; a
communication link that impacts our communication.
I agree with Gasser and Palfreys statement that technology has transformed our
nature of online communication, but it sets the stage for remarkable advancements in our
world technology. Gasser and Palfrey article suggests that the Digital Native generation
will squander the opportunity to move into an era of advanced technology due to a grow
in lackadaisical character; however, I, a digital native, have witnessed examples of
ambitious digital natives that are challenging our modern forms of technology with the
hopes of further developing our ability to communicate. Most of these developments are
positively impacting our online community. It does not just subtly coerce us to squander
time on social networks, it also gives us the opportunity to explore and discover what
other individuals wish to share with the online community.
Collectively, the Natives have successfully lived through the first shift and are
now approaching the second shift of technological advancements for communications.
Although technology influences our thought process, it also allows us to progress and
better our current forms of communication for future generations.

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Works Cited
Emanuel, Jenny. "Digital Native Librarians, Technology Skills, And Their Relationship
With Technology." Information Technology & Libraries 32.3 (2013): 20-33.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
Houston, Cynthia. "Digital Books For Digital Natives." Children & Libraries: The
Journal Of The Association For Library Service To Children 9.3 (2011): 39-42.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
Kaser, Dick. "Breaking All the (Editorial) Rules." Information Today Sept. 2006: 16.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
Lamb, Justin. "The Connectivity Map: A New Tool For Biomedical Research." Nature
Reviews Cancer 7.1 (2007): 54-60. Academic Search
Naraine, Ryan. "How Far Can Web Apps Take The Iphone?." PC World 25.10 (2007):
18-20. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.