New Communication Technologies

I use new communication technologies every day to communicate with my friends and family. My mobile phone, MySpace, Facebook, and email.

Although websites such as MySpace and Facebook were created so others could find and meet NEW people, I only ever use these websites to communicate with people I'm already friends with. Because most of my friends and family live in Brisbane, the internet is an easy and cheap way to catch up with them. I don't feel the need to meet new people via the internet, mainly because I don't trust people I can't see or don't know.

I've been using the internet since I was about 13 to chat with other people. Back then I used msn, but now I find it boring. It was just the thing to do in grade 8, considering the entire grade used it every night to gossip about everybody. Now I use MySpace, because all my friends had it and were raving about it. Then when I moved on-campus, there were people living there from all over the world, and the majority used Facebook. So I had to get it. With these kinds of websites, privacy is a pretty big issue, because I know people tend to creep around MySpace and go through others photos, read their relationship status, make assumptions from comments, and worst of all; people get cut if you don't have them in your top friends. Also, there are some pretty creepy people adding you on those sites that you've never seen before, and once you add them, they can see all your photos, your details, and read all about you. So I like my profiles on private.

I've had a mobile phone since I was 11, but it wasn't too exciting considering none of my friends had a mobile phone. The only reason I got a mobile phone was because I thought it was cool - not because I needed one. However, nowadays it's a totally different story. I use my mobile phone for basically everything when it comes to organising events or seeing a friend. It's just so convenient.

Email is a technology that I haven't really used at all until my sister moved overseas a couple of years ago. It's definitely the easiest way to communicate with them, considering there's so much to talk about. Email also came pretty handy when uni started, as everything was via email.

So as you can see, I use new communication technologies all the time, without really realising how much of a difference it would make if I didn’t use them. I honestly wouldn't be able to keep in touch with any of my friends, without having to drive an hour to see them. And even so, how would they know I was going to come and visit them? What if they're not home? How will I know where they are? I couldn't survive without my mobile phone.