You Don’t Have to be Professional to Need New Communication Skills

How many of us have found treasure troves of history, those packets of letters bound together by ribbon or string, in the boxes stored in our grandparents attics?  They were sometimes in the same boxes with the photo albums, scrapbooks, and cards that held memories of experiences, the stories of their lives.  With the advances in technology that support digital communications including images, audio, video, greeting cards and memoir makers, todays communicators and historians from Baby Boomers to Generation ‘C’, the connected generation (Fox, 2012), need to learn new skills in order to successfully communicate as well use new tools to record the stories of their lives. 

According to a 2014 Pew Research Center survey, social media use by members of multiple generations continues to rise.  
     • 52% of online adults now use two or more social media sites, a significant
        increase from 2013, when it stood at 42% of Internet users.
     • More than half of all online adults 65 and older (56%) use Facebook. 
        This represents 31% of all seniors.  
     • Roughly half of internet-using young adults ages 18-29 (53%) use
        Instagram. And half of all Instagram users (49%) use the site daily.
     • 71% of Internet users are on Facebook.  70% engage with the site 
        daily (and 45% do so several times a day), a significant increase 
        from the 63% who did so in 2013.
     • 49% of Instagram users and 17% of Pinterest users engage with their
       respective platforms daily. (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, & 
       Madden, 2015)

Because so much communication is being done through digital media, cursive writing has been discontinued in almost all schools in favor of students learning how to use digital keyboards and keypads (Los Angeles Daily News, 2013).  Scrapbooks and letters are being replaced by oral history recording through tools like StoryCorps and digital scrapbooking tools like MyMemories Suite.  Writing is done digitally through tools like Google’s Blogger software, Twitter, Facebook, or other tools.  Images and video are recorded through applications like Instagram or YouTube.  Most of these tools integrate with each other, serving whatever need there is to communicate and share most appropriately to serve the memory, lesson, or communication goal.   

With all of these different ways to communicate, communicators need to learn the new skills of digital communications.  How do you learn to use these tools? On the Internet of "course"!  Using mobile?  No problem, there's a mobile application for each one.  Do you want to learn to use Facebook?  There are free online courses and there are nearly 6.5 million free videos on YouTube just focused on learning Facebook.  Do you want to watch stories that have recorded history?  Go to the dedicated StoryCorps YouTube channel. 

Technology continues to advance.  How we communicate continues to evolve.  The blend of the two has infinite possibilities both for personal and professional communication, and their impact reaches to how we communicate about what touches our society and creates shifts in our culture.  

Want to learn how to use Facebook?  Check out this YouTube video!

Free YouTube Facebook Training 

Want to listen to podcasts to learn how to Blog?  One great resource is Leslie Samuel.  Check out Leslie's podcasts here:

Leslie Samuel video and podcasts on Blogging

References

Duggan, M., Ellison, N., Lampe, C., Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2015, January 09). Demographics of key social networking platforms. Retrieved July 31, 2015, from Pew Research Center: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-social-networking-platforms-2/

Fox, Z. (2012, February 23). Forget generation y: 18- to 34-Year-Olds are now 'Generation C'. Retrieved August 06, 2015, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2012/02/23/generation-c/

Los Angeles Daily News. (2013, November 18). Should school kids still learn cursive writing? Question of the week. Retrieved August 05, 2015, from Los Angeles Daily News: http://www.dailynews.com/opinion/20131118/should-school-kids-still-learn-cursive-writing-question-of-the-week