Disadvantages Of Mediated Communication

Until the nineteenth century, for most people actual experience was limited to events occurring within the “natural sensory envelope.”(Ruben & Stewart, p.181) I interviewed my father, Nabiuddin Azad, who is 56 years old now and has seen the development of cell phones, internet and many other forms of media communication as he was going through life. My father lived most of his life in India, a 3rd world county, so he experienced a slower growth in technology and forms of media communication than the people in the United States. He spent most of his life without cell phones or any other sort of media communication device. His answer to when he first started using a base phone was 2002 and 2010 was when he first started using a cell phone. For …show more content…
“In some mediated communication situations, interactants often have no direct knowledge of one another.” (Ruben & Stewart, p.187) That is the anonymity summed up in a sentence. Talking to my dad he was telling me about how today he can just make a call to interview someone without meting them in person. He said phone interviews have their advantages and disadvantages. “It feels like you are talking to a stranger and its hard to gauge their real behavior over the phone, but sometimes the work demands phone interviews so that’s how it has to be,” said Mr. Azad. He later added, “But, it also gives me the advantage of not traveling somewhere or having the other person travel for an interview, which saves us both time and probably money as well.” He also mentioned emergency situations and how cell phones are so useful in those situations. Anonymity in emergency situation when someone is dying does not make a difference because the main goal is to save that persons life. It does not matter if we do not not know who the person is picks up is when we call 911 as long as its someone who will get us help. If not cell phones, “we would have to get that person in a car and take them to the hospital and in India the traffic is so horrible and not being in an ambulance will almost be a 90% sureness that the patient will not survive because they will not get to the hospital in time.” said …show more content…
“Intimate Relationships, by contrast, require a substantial investment of time and effort.” (Ruben & Stewart, p.227) The way we communicate today through quick texts, and calls are beneficial to our causal relationships because casual relationships do not demand that much time and effort. On the contrary, you cannot do that with your intimate partner or they will start to think you are ignoring them or do not want to spend time with them in person. Mr. Azad talked about how his casual relationships are good these days due to cell phones because he can make a quick call or text to know how someone is doing instead of meeting them in person which he does not have much time for. However, he also realizes that he cannot do that with his spouse, my mom because she gets frustrated and does not like when he does not spend time with there in person and thinks that texts and calls are a supplement for that. He gave an example of when he was living in NY due to his work and me and my mom were living in NJ. He would call us every day and text her every day, but there was just something missing. He said, “It got to the point that we were about to get a divorce and separate and we had arguments almost every day on the phone.” He moved back to NJ and now everything is back to normal because he spends time with her. He said he always cared her,