What is Communication?
What is ‘Communication’?
1. What is ‘Communication’? It means sending a message from one person to another. It is also sending a message from one place to another. How do we communicate? We talk. We write. We draw. We move hands, eyes and face. This is how we communicate.
2. When you say something, your friends hear you and understand your ideas. When you tell them a story, they listen. When you tell them a joke, they laugh. But, how can you tell something to a friend who is far away?
3. Well, one way is just to go to the place where your friend is. However, that is not always possible. For example, if your friend lives very far away, you need to fly in an airplane to see your friend. This can cost you a lot of money. Do you always have a lot of time to fly to another country to see your friends? Not exactly! So, what are you going to do?
4. These days there are many ways to send a message. You can make a phone call. You can send a text message. You can write an e-mail and send it to your friend. You can send your friend a short message, photo, video or audio through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. What do you and your friend need to have to do this? Both of you need internet.
6. Sometimes, people used other ways of sending and getting messages. In Africa, people used music. One person used to beat a drum. Others were able to understand the message. For example, beating a drum three times meant, “Here is some food”.
7. In North America, long time ago, people used to send messages with smoke. For example, at the time of danger, people would make a fire. Then, they would send smoke in the air in different shapes by covering the fire. For example; two big balls of smoke and one smaller one, meant ‘We Need Help”
8. Smoke and drum messages went only a short way. These days, with the help of new technology, we can send messages anywhere in the world much faster and easier than before.