Yaroslava Napykhanko, INA-41

The Future of Communication

Communication has always been an important part of peoples’ lives. Therefore, it is not surprising that
different means of communication have been invented and developed throughout the human history.
Looking at the nowadays progress of means of communication one might wonder whether further
improvement of these means is even possible.

To begin with, while cell phones and internet connect people that are far away, they alienate people
who are nearby. For example, even nowadays a lot of parents struggle to establish communication with
their children and with each other because of the gadgets and possibility to talk online. I doubt that this
will somehow change in the future.

Secondly, let us consider the evolution of communication. In my opinion, not much will change in the
near future. By this I mean that people will still communicate via emails and text messages but more
rarely. The same goes for phone calls. Video calls are gaining more and more popularity these days and I
am firmly convinced that someday they will replace talking via cell phones.

Then, the idea of sending thoughts from one person’s brain to another through a network sounds
impossible to me. For this to be possible people will have to put some kind of microchip into their heads
and it is unlikely that many will agree to do it as humans tend to cherish their privacy and make up
conspiracy theories when they are afraid or suspicious of something. So, body and brain implants are
not an option either.

Last but not least, there are theories that assume that people will become so lazy in the future that the
new language – language of emojis – will emerge. As for me, it is absurd, as emojis are too ambiguous
and they cannot convey the message correctly. Communicating with the help of video or voice messages
however do seem like a possible way of communication in the future.

To conclude, although the future of communication definitely lies in technology, we must remember
how important live conversations are and how crucial it is for us to preserve this means of
communication.