Social Impacts of Wireless Communication

Wireless technologies use electromagnetic waves to send information. Ever since the development of the radio, new wireless technologies have changed every aspect of human life from communication, family life, and social interaction to military strategies, medical treatments, and policing. Critics allege that wireless technologies have destroyed the sense of community and turned modern citizens into passive consumers of the culture industry, and that computer-mediated communication has created a digital divide between technology's haves and have-nots. Technophiles believe that wireless technologies have connected the world's citizens while improving their standards of living and increasing their social capital and access to information. Without a doubt, wireless technologies have changed the nature of social interaction.

Social Impacts of Wireless Communication

Overview

Wireless technologies such as broadband internet, cell phones, television, and radio have reshaped all aspects of society since radio was first introduced at the end of the nineteenth century. As new technologies have been introduced, people have created new uses for them, which in turn cause new forms of social interaction to evolve. Wireless technology has reshaped the fields of medicine, law enforcement, sports, and education, among others, while reconfiguring interpersonal communication and changing the norms of public behavior. Technology provides the social context for interaction.

What Is Wireless Technology?

Wireless technology is any technology that transmits information using electromagnetic waves (which can include radio, infrared, laser, acoustic, or light waves) instead of using wire-based technology. This includes such diverse technologies as AM and FM radios, video conferencing, satellite television, cell phones, GPS systems, and text messaging.

Summarizing the impact of wireless technology can be difficult because the category "wireless" is merely one of many ways to categorize new technology. Some media forms use both wireless and wired technologies. This means that analytically it is useful to look at the social impact of one particular medium, for example, the internet (which can be delivered through cable, phone lines, or wireless technology) or television (delivered through satellite, cable, traditional broadcast), in addition to examining the wired/wireless distinction. At other times, the wireless/wired distinction is salient; at the minimum, it usually creates a difference in the cost, access, regulation, bandwidth, capacity, portability, speed, and convenience.

When studying the impact of wireless technology, it is also important to pay attention to the multiple forms of communication it enables, which can vary by size of audience, synchronicity, and direction of transmission (one-way versus two-way). A cell phone, for example, enables two-way communication between two or more individuals, while a television can only receive (not send) a signal, which is potentially sent out to millions of televisions. The direction of a particular technology can change; for example, recommendation lists on a newspaper website have turned a formerly one-way form of communication into a two-way form. Synchronous communication means that the people communicating are participating at the same time; asynchronous communication means that messages are sent back and forth with temporal gaps between sending and reception. Video conferencing is an example of synchronous communication while email is an example of asynchronous communication.

It can be easier to understand the impact that wireless technology has had on the world by looking at the roots of wireless communication. Radio and television both began as wireless media (although wired versions of television evolved later), so a close look at their development will illuminate the many ways in which these advances changed society.

The Development and Dissemination of Radio and Television

The history of modern wireless technology begins in 1899, when Guglielmo Marconi debuted his "wireless telegraph," which eventually came to be known as radio. The potential uses of this technology caught the public imagination; scores of other inventors scrambled to improve wireless technology. Radio did not come into its own for two decades after its creation, although in the first years of the twentieth century the industrialized world realized that wireless technology could create major social change and most countries struggled to anticipate and prepare for these changes.

From the beginning, the military applications of radio technology were seen as immense; the US Navy asked Marconi for a demonstration of his devices a few months after he introduced it to the public. The military's concern was prescient; wireless technology was used in the Boer War (1899–1902) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904). Wireless technology was seen as so important to international relations that Germany hosted International Wireless Conferences in 1903 and 1906 and the Institute of International Law in Belgium crafted guidelines to control wartime wireless use. In the United States, as the Army, Navy, journalists, the Weather Bureau, and other agencies began to compete for control of the airwaves, President Theodore Roosevelt formed an Interdepartmental Board of Wireless Telegraphy to handle problems arising from competition for the new technology. No regulations were actually created in the United States until a collision between two ocean liners in 1909 resulted in the Wireless Ship Act of 1910. This required that larger ships carry wireless equipment. It became evident that problems remained with the implementation of radio technology after sinking of the Titanic 1912; while the ships that arrived to rescue surviving passengers heard the Titanic’s distress call over the wireless, demonstrating its usefulness, closer ships either lacked equipment to receive the signals or lacked twenty-four-hour monitoring of the equipment they possessed. The tragedy led to a public outcry for more regulation of radio, which resulted in the Radio Act of 1912, requiring for the first time that radio operators obtain licenses to broadcast over the airwaves.

Inventors also applied themselves to less practical uses for radio. One of the first entrepreneurs to push the idea that radio could be used as a means of transmitting entertainment was Lee De Forest. His ideas were ahead of available technology, as his attempts to broadcast music from 1907 on were often panned by journalists of the day. Commercial radio broadcasting took off in 1922; the years 1922 through 1925 were the boom years of early radio. In 1921, one in five hundred households owned a radio; in 1926 that increased to one in six. Stations came and went. Early fare on radio stations consisted mainly of music, variety shows, vaudeville routines, drama, and some news and political programming. Commercial broadcasting stole audience share from other entertainment industries, such as phonograph sales and live entertainment. Radio advertising also became widespread during the economic strains of the Great Depression.

Television was pioneered and first publicly demonstrated in 1926, although the technology remained experimental for years. Commercial television broadcasting began in 1941, but almost immediately the government instituted a wartime freeze on expansion of stations and the production of television sets. The freeze was lifted in 1945, and television's boom began in 1947, slowed temporarily by another freeze, this time to control the number of new stations from 1948 until 1952. Because consumers were already adept at radio use, television use required little further socialization. Advertisements in magazines hyped TV sets as the center of family life before most consumers owned one, making suggestions about where to locate TV sets and advising that television would help to bring the family together.

Adoption of Wireless Technology

Generally, when a new technology is introduced, people first interpret its usefulness in terms of older technologies. Gradually, as people develop new uses for new technologies, their behavior changes and the new technologies feel indispensable to them. The new uses then bring about changes in social norms. For example, the telephone was first used in the same way as the telegraph; the idea of a central exchange linking households was slow to develop. Of course, once house-to-house communication was established, telephones became seen as necessary. Likewise, the wireless nature of cellular telephones was first used in much the same way as land lines; it took a few years for people to develop uses for the cell phone that could not be replicated on a land line.

As cell phones have become widespread, they have changed social behaviors. For example, studies show that the convenience and accessibility of cell phone communication leads people to spend less time planning their schedules; their use of time becomes more spontaneous. This lack of planning in turn creates a need to continue using the cell phones; people feel dependent on them. Some people report a need to engage in "digital fidgeting" by constantly checking messages.

As cell phones first became popular, a debate emerged about changing norms concerning appropriate behavior in public. The major point of dispute revolves around the politeness of answering the phone when in public: is it rude to do so when out with friends or on a date? When is it permissible to screen calls? Is it rude to talk on a phone while waiting in line, eating in a restaurant, riding public transportation, or using public restrooms? Such questions are still being negotiated, as the perception of cell phones shifts from the exotic to the humdrum. For younger users of technology, availability and accessibility are markers of higher social status. For older users, they are often a public annoyance, although they have become seen as necessary.

Social Interaction

Radio created a mass public. While newspapers and books also created mass audiences, radio was unique since it created an audience that participated in broadcast events simultaneously yet without sharing physical space. This effect has led to some of the major social impacts of all subsequent wireless technologies: humans can create bonds with each other without the need for "physical co-presence." From the beginning, then, wireless technology changed the concept of interaction.

Joshua Meyrowitz points out that the creation of new forms of communication change the pattern and character of social interaction. Television and radio changed the nature of socialization, shifted the public sense of shared experiences and group identity, eliminated distinctions between public behavior and private behaviors, and changed in-group and out-group boundaries. Radio and television created shared experiences between groups that had been separated by print media. Whereas there had been men's magazines and women's magazines, and children's books and adult books, the programming of electronic media was initially aimed at a general audience. This has changed since the invention of cable television and subsequent technologies have re-splintered the audience.

The Family

Television was initially welcomed as an aid to family togetherness. The American family changed rapidly after the Second World War. Suburbanization isolated people from their extended family networks, married women entered the workforce in larger numbers even while gender roles underwent retrenchment, men dealt with the after-effects of combat, and the family was increasingly socialized to become a unit of consumption to jumpstart the postwar economy. Studies at the time showed a strong belief that television viewing drew families together, helping them resist the centripetal forces of modern life. At the same time, many people expressed the same ambivalence toward the television that they expressed toward other forms of technology. There were concerns that television would create passivity, increase violence, and weaken the influence of parents. This ambivalence was not misplaced; television united families and also divided them.

The internet further shifted family dynamics. Meyrowitz argues that the boundaries of family life became blurred by electronic media. People can "travel" through, or "inhabit," electronic landscapes or settings that are no longer defined fully by walls of a house, neighborhood blocks, or other physical boundaries, barriers, and passageways.

Social Ties

These changes serve to unite people around the globe, in a surface sense, while eroding local homogeneity. On the other hand, while people's exposure to these different experiences has increased the heterogeneity of families, it also can keep families more connected. Many households use wireless technology to keep in touch and manage their schedules. While this means they are in frequent contact, it also means that households can function more as networks of individuals rather than as unified groups.

Of course, being connected electronically is not the same as sharing a social connection. Because wireless technologies make it possible for people to access each other, advances in communications technologies are often greeted with the belief that they will bring people together. The phone and the internet have created new ways of maintaining social relationships and enable new types of relationships, however, just because people are available to each other online or over the phone does not mean that they will become socially close to each other. In this sense, wireless communication is much like face-to-face communication; physical propinquity does not guarantee social closeness.

Research that tries to understand the connection between internet use and offline social ties has been contradictory. Sociologist Shanyang Zhao suggests that this is because the concept of internet use is overly broad. There are heavy users and light users, people who use the internet for solitary purposes and people who use it to connect with others through email, chat, and discussion forums. When controlling for usage patterns, Zhao found that people who spend more time online engaged in nonsocial purposes had fewer social ties than those who used the internet more lightly, or who used it for primarily social reasons. Overall, findings seem to suggest that use of the internet enhances or exaggerates pre-existing preferences for isolation or interaction.

Applications

According to CTIA, the use of wireless devices is growing in US households; in December 2012, there were 326.4 million active wireless devices, including smartphones, tablets, and Wifi hotspots; with a total population of 316 million Americans, the United States has a wireless penetration rate of 102.2 percent (CTIA, 2012). Furthermore, CTIA indicated that more than one-third of American households (35.8 percent) were wireless-only, meaning they no longer had a landline phone. In 2023, the Pew Research Center reported that 97 percent of Americans owned cell phones, while 90 percent of Americans owned smartphones. The same year, it was reported that 15 percent of Americans did not have home broadband internet, instead using only smartphones to access the internet. As wireless technology is used for an ever-increasing number of new devices, it permeates more and more areas of daily life.

Viewpoints

Just as it is hard to separate the social impact of wireless from the impact of each technological form, it is hard to separate criticisms of each. Separate criticisms have been made of each new media form carried through wireless technologies: radio, television, the internet, and cell phones specifically, and wireless technologies in general have been condemned.

The Culture Industry

At times, criticisms of the social impacts of new technologies are actually criticisms of the mass production of culture. For example, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, writing during World War II, criticized the culture industry, believing that the mass production of cultural products stifled individualism and led to a conformity that supported fascism. While their critique was aimed at all forms of mass culture (of which wireless technology was a small part) they disliked the one-way communication and passivity of the audience exemplified by radio.

Critiques of Television

Television has probably come in for more censure than other technologies. At various times, people have claimed that television dumbs down the public, increases violence, distorts reality, encourages conformity, isolates viewers, and induces political apathy. Studies looking for overt media effects suggest that heavy watchers of television do have a distorted view of reality, insofar as they believe that the high level of violence on television reflects reality and are likely to see society as more violent than it actually is.

Neil Postman believes that television has had a negative influence on US society. He believes that the form of media shapes its content; that is, the same sorts of ideas cannot be expressed by each form media takes. The printed word can express complex, logical thoughts; smoke signals can only communicate the briefest messages. Television is good at entertaining, perhaps too well, because it has led viewers to expect everything to be entertaining, including religion, education, and politics. As a result, people vote based on image and appearances, religion has lost its sacred quality, and education has become more like television: an institution that avoids complexity, critical thinking, and exposition. Postman believes that the age of television has reduced public discourse to nonsense and that the lack of an informed public able to think critically will eventually threaten democracy.

Other Wireless Debates

Security

Wireless networks are more vulnerable to security breaches than wired networks. This risk is exacerbated by the tendency of many people to use mobile devices in public without considering issues of privacy and security.

The Digital Divide

As the internet first became popular and the advantages conferred by internet access became apparent, researchers became concerned about the potential exacerbation of inequality caused by unequal access to the internet. This concern faded as the availability of the internet became more widespread through public wireless access such as internet in schools and libraries. A different digital divide also appeared, one concerning how effectively people can use the internet. This divide is correlated with the amount of education a person has, and has implications for ability to effectively retrieve and use information found online.

Wireless technology has been embraced by schools and universities trying to prepare students for the workforce, and is especially useful in supporting the move toward problem-based learning. However, technology improves at such a fast pace that it can be hard for school systems to keep up with the changes.

The concern about unequal internet access rose again in 2020 and 2021, when the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused lockdowns in countries around the world. With many schools switching to virtual learning, people who did not have home computers or internet were at a disadvantage. Although some school districts provided computers to students during that time, it was still reported that high percentages of parents and students struggled with online learning.

Wireless technology is seen by some as an invaluable aid in the spread of human rights round the globe. Former Federal Communications Commission chair Kevin Martin thinks that wireless communication has become so important that he wants to mandate that at least 25 percent of the wireless airwave spectrum coming up for auction to be set aside for free broadband, thus addressing the needs of lower-income households and rural areas that are currently underserved by the broadband industry.

Ownership, Access, and Globalization

In the United States, the public owns the airwaves (although many citizens are unaware of this fact) and the Federal Communications Commission regulates the use of the airwaves for communication in the United States. Many of this agency's decisions have ignited political controversy. For example, the Fairness Doctrine, which mandated equal time for issues of community importance, was eliminated in 1987, and caps on the number of radio stations that one corporate entity could own nationwide have also been eliminated. While supporters of these actions claim that the multiple media outlets of the present day make issues of ownership and access less pressing, opponents claim that concentrated media ownership and lack of attention to equal time have weakened citizens' ability to gain the knowledge needed to anticipate in a healthy democracy.

Conclusions

Two things are certain: wireless technologies have changed the face of the United States and the world, and the rate of change is speeding up all the time. Wireless technologies have connected the world and made the old idea of globalism real. At the same time, they encourage cultural imperialism and reify older forms of inequality. Social interaction has shifted, as cell phones mean that everyone can be accessible at all times. The internet has increased access to information to the point that information overload has become a problem. Identities and group boundaries have been rearranged by wireless technologies. Critics believe that these seismic shifts have weakened Americans' ability to think critically; others claim that the information and connection provided by these advances have made the world smaller and a much more hospitable place for humans.

Terms & Concepts

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC): Any communication carried out over the internet, for example email, social media, instant messaging, and web conferencing.

Cultural Imperialism: Domination or obliteration of one culture by another culture's products.

Culture Industry: The entirety of industries involved in the production and distribution of articles of mass culture. The term generally carries negative connotations.

Digital Divide: Originally describing a gap in internet access, this now also refers to a gap in information literacy.

Information & Communication Technologies (ICT): Popular catchall term for both wireless and wired new media technologies.

Social Capital: The extent to which a person belongs to and participates in community networks.

Synchronous Communication: Communication in which participants take part simultaneously.

Wireless Technology: Any technology that transmits information using electromagnetic waves such as radio, infrared, laser, acoustic or light waves, instead of using wire-based technology.

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