A look into the four major eras that have shaped the world we live in today

The start of social relationships existed within an oral tradition rather than written. The four major eras show how technological change relates to social change. We can see this change by looking at patterns and how they shift over the course of history. It is hard to imagine a world where technology doesn’t exist and everything is not at our fingertips. By looking at each era, we become aware of how our society began and how much it has progressed into the world we live in today.
First we begin in traditional oral cultures. Oral societies centered on sound and speech as the main form of interaction. Information was stored in memory and transferred orally by song, dance and ritual. This way of interacting brings families together and can act as entertainment but is also used for remembering and maintaining knowledge and cultural values. The social system can be broken down by tribe or village and there is little difference in these social groups. Only age and experience differentiate members, indicating the tribal elders hold more knowledge. People are grouped by “children”, “adults” and “elders”. Due to tribal people being so unified, individuality does not exist. The power is shared between group members, rather than placing it to a specific individual.
The introduction of writing begins to change the organization of oral societies. The scribal phase began in early civilization during the Medieval/Renaissance Europe. The oral phase is still prominent but writing and books have created larger communities. Writing allows people not to use just their memory but focus more on ideas and individual thought. Most people did not know how to read or write during this time, the ones that did had more connection to information. Writing encouraged individual thought and self reflection rather than social conversation in oral cultures. These intricate thoughts and ideas could be documented and revised instead of keeping information in your memory. People started learning from books, allowing for increased knowledge. A shift in social ranking began to take place during this era. The idea of co dependance of the tribal society had disappeared. The majority of people such as labors and workers were at the bottom. A small portion of nobles and landowners were at the top. The nobles and the church were the only ones who had access to written material. The idea of individuality slowly emerges with the literate members, while the others still remained in a social society.
Next we shift to the printing press which introduced the result of printed material. The age of Enlightenment was triggered by the printing press and marks the end of the scribal era and the moving to the modern period. Expanding on the printing press, resulted in the development of mass communication mediums such as newspapers, film, radio and tv. The printing press changes the oral community of family ties and isolation. Readers are able to look at words and form meaning before speaking. Written material can be corrected and revised, while speaking cannot be taken back or erased. These characteristics of reading and writing advance the progress of internal dialogue and individualistic thinking. Individual skillsuch as increasing literacy and reading offered individuals to gain their own knowledge. This new culture allows for larger intellectual, political and religious groups. A rise of higher education becomes crucial to produce the specific knowledge needed to keep up with a more invloved society. With a stronger knowledge, society can be better managed and perfected. The world around us begins to be seen as generally layered and segmented, with a specific place for everything and everyone.
A new media era is introduced with the telegraph and telephone when the print culture is at its peak. Features such as radio, tv, computer, internet and phones begin to weaken elements of the print culture. Post modern systems are not confined to family connections or locations, the internet allows communication and sharing without being limited by space or time. Electronic communication can travel all over the world at a fast pace and be stored for lifetimes. While written and printed words featured ideas, electronic media focuses on feeling and mood. The internet provides an enormous amount of human knowledge, ruining the access of information held by organizations. This causes information overload because so much information is at our fingertips, making it hard to know what information to trust.
Meyrowitz explains what types of mediums our society has gone through and the mediums effect on society. The reading explains to focus less on the message and more on the actual medium. The mediums we see generate different emotions. Over time we see both communication and technology advance and become interconnected.