People learn and share information through communication. There are many forms of communication, but they all have one thing in common: the sending and receiving of a message. Using different kinds of communication, people can pass along their ideas and feelings to just one other person or to millions of people. Communication is not only a human activity. Animals communicate with each other through sounds, scents, and behavior. Computers communicate with other computers through electronic networks. However, people have many more ways to communicate than either animals or computers. Kinds of communicationPeople communicate through language, both spoken and written. Spoken language includes conversations and speeches. In spoken language, both words and sounds such as sighs, groans, and laughter send messages. Written language includes books, newspapers, letters, and e-mail. In addition to speaking and writing, people communicate nonverbally, or without words. Deaf people use hand movements called sign language. Facial expressions, gestures, and posture show feelings. This form of nonverbal communication is sometimes called body language. Photographs, paintings, sculptures, music, movies, plays, and poetry are also forms of communication. Though the arts can communicate facts, they often express feelings and ideas from the artist's imagination. Where communication happensCommunication happens in private and public settings, between individuals and in groups. Friends gossip on the telephone. Families talk over dinner. Teams plan their moves while playing games. Teachers pass information to large groups of students. Businesses send reports between their departments and to customers. Advertisers make commercials that reach millions of people. Government announcements are spread around the world on television, in newspapers, and on the Internet. HistoryThe first modern humans appeared about 200,000 years ago. They likely communicated through sounds, gestures, and eventually speech. There is no record of human communication until between 35,000 and 10,000 years ago. During that time the first artwork—cave paintings and sculptures of animals and people—appeared. (See also human origins.) Humans invented writing more than 5,000 years ago. The ancient Sumerians developed the first known script, cuneiform. Soon afterward the ancient Egyptians developed a picture-based writing called hieroglyphics. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century AD was a major advance in written communication. For the first time printers could quickly make many copies of a page of text or a whole book. People in ancient Greece and Rome trained homing pigeons to carry written messages over long distances. Before railroads and automobiles, messengers on foot or on horseback carried letters between towns. Governments ran public postal services starting in the 17th century. A series of inventions in the 19th and 20th centuries made telecommunication, or communication over long distances, easy and fast. Telegraphs, telephones, radio, television, cellular phones, and the Internet all increased communication between people around the world. (See also telecommunication.) |