Communication Without Bounds?

6. Conclusions

The argument of this paper is not that the advent of hypercommunication is an inevitable historical development or that communication technology is counterproductive in the end. What I have said is that when we are driven only by an unqualified longing for unlimited accessibility, we lack a directional device and so are no longer able to draw the line between good and bad uses of the new communication technologies. We must moderate the flow of our communications in order to reserve time to invest in social relationships and the communities in which we participate. That does not mean we have to return to pre-industrial or even premodern society. On the contrary, our highly advanced socio-technical systems may also help us to attain the goal of a more genuinely communicative society. For example they may provide us with the means, such as voicemail, SMS services or the trill alarm on mobile phone sets, that we need not only to expand but also to regulate our sphere of communication, thereby generating new opportunities to create a zone of intimacy for the things that really matter in life as well as in human relationships. In chapter 8, therefore, we will explore how the new means of communication may serve to enhance social interaction between people. At the same time, we will develop an integrative and normative view of technology.