HUMANE DIGITAL ROUTE TO CUSTOMIZE COMMUNICATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

As technology progresses, new communications are/will be born and old ones fade away. When one is trying to connect with any other contact point, one has a plethora of options to choose from. Whether for interpersonal business communications, electronic media is critical to getting business done efficiently and cost-effectively. Mobile devices, social networking media and email etc. are being used all over the world for diverse communication needs. Yet, the time has come to make us realize what and where our options are challenged. Social relationships and responsibilities are indispensible for human survival and progress. Communication enables man to ever remain a capable and sensitive social being. Communication also has the potential to make man more responsible as well as conscious and aware. However, it is not possible to ignore that we can communicate without the help of technology any more. Technology aided, enabled and enhanced communication is now the dominant order of the day. New technologies can improve the quality of life of all through teaching. It will, at this stage, be perhaps redundant to deliberate on how our communication has progressed from the traditional family sessions centred around star-gazing, log-burning, grass-picking and similar social gatherings as well as storytelling sessions and the like to the omnipresent and indispensible ICT borne & aided communication, or how the mobile phone and the internet have come to almost replace the longhand written, perfume sprayed letters. But at this stage, we need to ardently realize and take stock of the possibilities that will once again bring back the flutter of the lashes and the naughtiness of winks into our communication. Here one need not refer to the animation and graphics options available at the computers and mobile platforms that the generation ‘Y” has adapted so well. Such innovation in digital communication thus would primarily be an attempt to incorporate and capture the subtle human and humane flavor that adds intrinsic value to our communication and the way we relate to each other. We must now toy with possibilities of innovations in technology aided and enabled communication that would merge the traditional with the yet to be. Improvement cannot be confined to mere notions of bytes, boards, rams and configurations. In an era when young generations are digital-friendly, the role of new forms of media in children and adolescents’ cognitive and emotional development must not be overlooked. Educating today’s generation of learners requires an understanding of the new digital environment. But digitalization cannot remain the sole domain of Information Technology driven thought process. What become specific are the efforts required to make this connection happen at the pulsating humane level where the virtual communication takes cognizance of the human tears and smiles in the same manner as thinking, emoting, intuiting, sensitive communicator would do in interpersonal communication. It is as mentioned earlier not just the technologies that concern us, rather the social change that concomitant as well as consequential social changes that accompanies the technologies which must be our prime concern, simultaneously paying attention to capturing the subtle human factors that will lead to the real time ‘connect’ between the communicator and the target population – especially in the domains of education in developing contexts like India.