Throughout the ages, communication has been the lifeblood of all cultures. Communication has continued to be the exchange of ideas and traditions, the transfer of knowledge and art. Communication has built bonds and supported the evolution of civilization as well as devolved into conflict and turmoil.
The evolution of communication within our recorded history has moved from drumbeats and cave paintings to the printing press to emails, social media, and a myriad of electronic communications. In the not-too-distant past, one could turn off, tune out and escape from the incessant inundation of multi-sourced messages, to have time to select and ingest various communications and consider their meaning, impact, and relevance in one’s life.
Today, with communication coming towards and around us 24/7, it is a challenge to filter, to differentiate truth from fiction, to prioritize each message and act accordingly. The media has encouraged equalizing all communications causing cognitive numbness and unfortunately, ensuing inactivity or a sense of an inability to do something about it. Today the Russian invasion of Ukraine has the same news priority as Russian figure skating scandals. AI is considered equivalent to human thought.
However, as often happens, meanings change to fit a current narrative, altering original intention and purpose.
The truth is: Communication only is able to evolve concurrent to the evolution of the channels and systems of communication, unfortunately not always for the better. Communication is not only vital to life. Communication is life. Perhaps the greatest evolution may be when each of us are fully responsible for the effects of our communication, whether through one’s ideas, one’s products, one’s art, one’s marketing, one’s acts of kindness. Imagine that world. Imagine communication evolved.
– Gillian