Pick a recent change that has taken place in the field of communication technology, and write an essay (350- 400 words)

Pick a recent change that has taken place in the field of communication technology, and write an essay (350- 400 words) to show its causes and/or effects to help you and your readers understand that change better.

When you think back to hundreds of years ago, our communication methods have changed dramatically. The only forms of communication were face to face, writing letters, and that was it. Through the years, the technology behind communication has improved through many changes which resulted in avoiding path methods of communication due to the lack of efficiency. One change that I think has been very impactful was the introduction of different video chat methods, such as Face Time or Skype.

As many times communication is very important and needs immediate responses, past methods like writing letters, emails, or sending faxes were not efficient enough. Writing a letter would take days to arrive, writing an email requires the other person to open the email (which could take hours or days), and faxing is plain outdated. Seeing these delays in the communication process, video chat helped eliminate that completely while adding other benefits at the same time. With Face Time or Skype, the users are able to call the person they would like to chat with whether it is on a mobile device or a computer, and the device will ring just like a phone.

The effect of being more time efficient allows businesses to get a lot of information across without having to communicate back and forth via email, which could take days if the information is dense enough. Cutting down the amount of time it takes to communicate is very critical because this allows other work to be started sooner than before.  This allows a full conversation to take place rather than each person having to send messages at their own convenience. Also as stated before, there are additional benefits to video chat services.

Business requires a lot of non-verbal communication as many times there is a lot of money on the line, and a lot of stress. Video chat allows the two parties to physically see each other, which allows them to read the other party’s non-verbal’s. This was not a possibility in email as there were no real time reactions, you were able to sit on an email and draft up the best possible response. Also, it allows people from two different sides of the world to be able to virtually sit in the same room and have a meeting. Not only does this reduce costs because employees can now avoid traveling across the globe, but increase the productivity of a company (Small Business, n.d.).  Employees are able to video chat rather than meeting up at a physical location, because sometimes it can be difficult to get multiple parts of a business together at the same time.  This can help create trust that was not possible over email or international calls, because the parties can see one another’s face, attitudes, and demeanor.

There was an evident cause for change as old methods of communication were slow and outdated. People wanted a faster way to communicate, but also something more efficient. Once video chat was made a possibility it forever changed communication. It allowed people who may have never been able to see each other, the ability to see and hear each other, in real time. Through this, business has also been able to enhance trust and form better business relationships.