Unit 3-Theorizing CMC: Technology and Social Interaction Summary

In unit 3, CMC deals with a range of questions about the relationship between humans and technology such as how people interact with technology, how people incorporate technology into their everyday social lives, how people interact through technology, and how people talk about technology.  This unit also describes how the internet has come from a long line of communication including the printing press, telegraph, telephone, radio, and television and humans continue to manipulate information and messages.  An important term discussed in this unit is Determinism which makes the assumption that technology is the primary cause of major social and historical changes and profound social and psychological influences at the microsocial level of the regular use of tools.  The internet has an impact on people's lives with its design and commercial ideologies, its practical and material affordances and is uses and gratifications.