Communications is the biggest driver of frequency of use of anything. Think about how many times a day you check your email on your phone or text someone or message someone.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Email, instant messaging, and cell phones give us fabulous communication ability, but because we live and work in our own little worlds, that communication is totally disorganized.
Smart phones and social media expand our universe. We can connect with others or collect information easier and faster than ever.
With communication technology in general, there's a kind of certain critical mass of people. Once you get to 15% of the world's entire population using one communication technology, that's a big deal. It's beyond the theoretical at this point. The people who think it's a fad have probably not been paying that much attention.
In my column series 'The Main Thing', I often talk about how Internet technology can improve the way people communicate - both within a business and between a business and its customers and partners.
During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts.
There are a lot of things that need to be done to improve communications.
There are 4 billion cell phones in use today. Many of them are in the hands of market vendors, rickshaw drivers, and others who've historically lacked access to education and opportunity. Information networks have become a great leveler, and we should use them together to help lift people out of poverty and give them a freedom from want.
In terms of the technology I use the most, it's probably a tie between my Blackberry and my MacBook Pro laptop. That's how I communicate with the rest of the world and how I handle all the business I have to handle.
E-mail, when it became mobile - what happened? Utilization of email went through the roof. Just pure Internet access and data - what happens when you mobilize it? Multiples. People are dependent upon broadband and as you mobilize it, they become even more dependent on broadband.
We have more media than ever and more technology in our lives. It's supposed to help us communicate, but it has the opposite effect of isolating us.