CBS Thought

Convenience, that is what society today is all about.  This can be seen in almost all aspects of life from the food we eat to the gadgets we buy, they are all designed to make our lives easier and more convenient.  Jeff Greenfield uses the word convergence to describe how nearly all forms of media and information are now all combined onto one form of media, he then stated that this convergence of media shifts the power from the providers to the users.  This statement really stood out to me.  From society's desire for convenience, companies that once distributed other forms of media, like the newspaper, serve relatively no purpose anymore.  It is one thing to make things convenient for yourself, but when that has a negative effect on society or yourself, too much of a good thing can easily become a bad thing.  

Communication today is much different than it was just ten years ago, rather than just pick up the phone and call somebody, people resort to texting.  This form of communication changes the way people talk to each other, the shortened words and acronyms can be hard to keep up with and I believe it does affect people's grammatical skills overall.  Along with the grammatical errors in texting, the content of some text messages can be misinterpreted.  You could say one thing and because the reader can't hear or see you, it may be understood as something completely different.  I also think that people will say a lot of things that they would never say to another person directly because through text messaging, they feel that they have more power.  

I definitely agree with Greenfield on his last message about keeping the fundamentals.  I think people have overlooked or forgotten the importance of direct communication.  Younger generations will have no idea what "clear vivid language" is when they mature and I find that very sad.  This is part of the reason that more and more children who reach junior high and even high school still can't understand what they are reading in their textbooks or newspapers.