Strategic Communication and Emerging Media

  Some of these statistics are blowing my mind.   The majority of people who have their own cell phone are higher educated people, but it appears we have no social decency and etiquette when it comes to handling ourselves in public.   I mean, at what point did we decide we were too important to be present in a conversation or a meeting or WHILE WE ARE DRIVING?   What’s even crazier is that when we are with someone who pulls out their phone to use it in our presence we often feel offended, but are the first ones to pull out our own phone when we are then in the presence of someone else.   I can’t help but wonder why this is.   Do we believe that we are really that important and that every text, call and email must receive a response right away?   But, we are not able to reciprocate that feeling towards others who use their phone in our company?   So far I am simply talking about social gatherings, but have you been in a situation where you find yourself in a professional setting and

  Dopamine- sometimes known as the “feel-good neurotransmitter”.   We all need it, we crave it, we function at a much more excited level when we have it.   Would it blow your mind to know that we get a surge of dopamine when we check our phones?   It’s a pleasure.   It excites us.   What happens when we’re bored?   We pick up our phone.   When we have lost time throughout the day, it’s usually because we’ve gotten lost in a whirlwind of “stuff” on our phone.   We are a generation of addicts.   Not only are we addicted, we can’t get enough.   It’s the last thing we do at night, the first thing we do in the morning, hell when we wake up in the middle of the night we check our phones.   We have new terminology that is based solely on our phone addictions.   Words like ‘nomophobia’ which is the fear of not having your phone, ‘textaphrenia’ is the fear of not being able to send or receive texts, and ‘phantom vibrations’ which is feeling your phone alerting you when it isn’t. Excessive cel

    Here I am again.  Yup.  It’s me.  Long time no see.  We met around this time last year and discussed strategic communication practices.  It’s time to throw in emerging media and see what conversations we can get into.  I’ve made it to the final countdown folks.  Two terms to go, then BAM!  Masters degree.  (It doesn’t actually feel like BAM, it feels like months and months of reading and studying and writing and trying not to re-write, but I have learned like, A LOT, of information).  So, let’s get this party started. Rewind 20 years. DVD’s were barely a thing, let alone digital news.   If you wanted to know what was going on in the world you had to actually read the morning newspaper or catch the news on the local channels.   EVERYBODY had a morning newspaper on their front lawn awaiting the companion of a cup a joe to start the day.   (Well, not my folks.   Ours had to be placed in the mailbox as a subscription because we lived out in the middle of nowhere).   So my parents d