Mid-Term Blog : Communication Technology Timeline

Timelines are a great way to describe change over a long period. At the end of the day, everything undergoes change and can't avoid it, especially communication. The way we get others to understand us is so important because it's how we feel valid. When people can grasp the same meaning and interpretation that we have, it makes it a lot easier to get along and get our point across. Throughout the years, there have been countless amounts of communication introduced to the public. In fact, communication has always been around ever since man touched this earth. Communication can be viewed as the exchanging of information or news to another person or entity. Over time, it's evolved substantially. A prime example of this is the emoji. 

A selction of the modern Emoji Alphabet 

The emoji brings our thoughts and ideas to life, as it implements emotions into our text. Using them has become as normalized and common as one can imagine. When looking at the bigger picture, the evolution of the emoji is fascinating, considering where it all began. During the early existence of our time, Cavemen have been writing images on walls for others to interpret. Over 17,300 years ago, they left paintings, inscriptions, and sculptures for us to analyze that are now considering as one of the biggest leaps mankind has ever taken. At this point in time, we transformed from living on instinct to living on thoughts and feelings. As time moves forward, about 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians then adopt hieroglyphics which propels us forward in the evolution process, resulting in us to read it in a sequence. The images are still present but now there is thinking and reading involved rather than just feeling and sensing. This is a big deal because writing is a huge accomplishment. It's even argued that you wouldn't have history without writing, despite the events that you can count in order. However, this isn't where it stopped. Instead of just using pictures and images, we evolved to symbols because they can tell a lot using a little. Having a set of symbols allow you to use them in whichever order you wish to describe your thoughts, like the alphabet for example. Although there are only 26 letters (symbols) in the English alphabet, there are thousands of words that are able to be produced.

The alphabet did come a long way but it certainly did take time to evolve to what it is today. 

Evolution of the letter A

All the way from cavemen drawing to the emoji alphabet. It's an incredible accomplishment to think about. These emojis that we used are just randomly selected either, you have to know how to use them and where to add them to your message. We live in a day in age where emojis make an appearance almost anywhere we go. Where it's common to use emojis in your messages. Where it's considered weird and creepy if you don't. You can even be considered as a boring and dry texter if you choose to opt-out of emoji use. The new way of communicating your thoughts AND emotions has arrived and in my opinion, isn't going away anytime soon.