In Downey’s book, he highlights the ways in which communication has evolved over time with the rise of technology in America. Something that I found to be interesting was the question of whether or not “technology should be used to “augment” human interaction or to “automate” human action (p10). This was a question that was posed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but is still relevant today. In Downey’s book, he highlights the ways in which communication has evolved over time with the rise of technology in America. Something that I found to be interesting was the question of whether or not “technology should be used to “augment” human interaction or to “automate” human action (p10). This<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIsXc-i","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19,"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hist427.emmabaumgardner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Additionally, the ways that we talk and interact with technology have changed over time. Previously, technology was something that had been fixed, and now we’ve entered both a wireless and mobile world thus changing the ways in which we interact with it. Downey touches on telephones specifically and how with the advent of cell phones, it is always present on our bodies making us always present in the telephone network (p32). This is both exciting that technology has advanced this far, but also worrisome because it is so ingrained into our society and our lives.
Lastly, I found his ongoing discussions about privacy to be extremely relevant. While these questions about privacy began to arise with the creation of the post office, the creation of the radio made people question how far technology was going to play into their private lives. Ultimately, Downey does a great job of highlighting the ways in which communication has both changed and evolved throughout history while being conscientious of the ways in which it has impacted us socially, politically and economically.
Downey, Gregory. Technology and Communication in American History. <\/em>American Historical Association. 2011. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"