Smiling, touching, watching, copying, talking, listening, singing, dancing, painting, writing, and making – these are the ways we have always connected with one another. From cave paintings to the latest AI models, our methods of communication have been shaped by the culture in which we are born, power hierarchies, and the technologies of our time.
But how did early societies manage to encode meaning that could be understood? How did we transition from simple gestures and sounds to complex forms of expression?
Early Systems of Knowledge Sharing (Prehistoric Era)
This period witnessed language and speech development, allowing early humans to survive. These methods evolved alongside symbolic expression (cave paintings) and mimicry (imitation).
Cave paintings functioned as a form of visual communication. These artworks captured practical knowledge (illustrations of creatures such as bison and deer might have recorded hunting techniques or migration routes), storytelling, and ritual.
Image Credit: Wikimedia
Mimicry and imitation have both innate and culturally influenced components. From birth, we show a predisposition for imitative behavior, which is then enhanced through social interaction. For example, parent-child mimicry, where the infant imitates the caregivers’ gestures, prevailed to our times. Even now, we learn dough kneading by watching and doing alongside our caregivers. These imitative abilities enabled our ancestors to transmit complex skills such as hunting techniques, tool-making, and food preparation.
Consider the Australian Aboriginal songlines that maintained oral geographical knowledge. Songlines (or dreaming tracks) are paths across the land or sky that mark the routes followed by “creator-beings” in the Dreaming. The Dreaming is a central concept in Aboriginal mythology where ancestral beings created the world by singing it into existence. In this world, every rock, bush, tree, stream, and star has a story to tell. Therefore, songlines act as proto-GPS. By singing the songs in sequence, Aboriginal people could navigate vast distances, identifying landmarks, water sources, and other natural features. Some songlines span hundreds of kilometers, such as the 3,500-kilometer route from the Central Desert to Byron Bay, connecting desert and coastal communities.
Video Credit: Paul Taylor
These systems of knowledge sharing complemented each other: oral traditions required proximity, symbolic expression preserved knowledge across eras (cave paintings date back tens of thousands of years), and mimicry, although error-prone, embedded practices into muscle memory.
Yet these methods had limits. As Neolithic societies amassed grain stores and livestock and settled into more or less permanent communities, the need to track “who owed what,” “who owns what,” or “who agreed with what” strained against memory, whether biological or generational. So, how did these practices of sharing knowledge transition into more permanent records?
The solution emerged as clay tokens in ancient Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq, including parts of present-day Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Kuwait). These tokens were small geometric shapes such as spheres, cones, and ovoids. A token might signify a day’s labor, a measure of grain, or a jar of oil. With a diverse collection of around three hundred distinct types of tokens, it became possible to encode various economic transactions.
Image Credit: Wikipedia
However, for this encoding to become efficient, all tokens had to be kept together and deter fraud, as one merchant might give four tokens to another party, but somehow, at the end of the day, one token would mysteriously go missing.
The ancient Mesopotamians developed a clever solution known as the bulla, or clay envelope, to manage tokens.
So now, our merchant would mark a soft clay bulla with imprints representing four tokens. On the transaction day, he would put the tokens inside the bulla and bake it. Once the bulla was sealed, people would need to break the bulla to access the tokens inside. And so, any attempt to tamper with the tokens was quite visible.
Image Credit: Wikimedia
The bulla also included a layer of authentication. Seals with unique designs were pressed into its surface, acting as ancient signatures that identified the parties involved in the transaction and authenticated the agreement.
Over time, token imprints on the outside of bullae became standardized. A bulla with four imprints might signify the same quantity of the same items in Uruk or Nineveh, disregarding any language barrier.
In a practical sense, tokens and bullae served as the first data storage system driven by accounting needs.
However, as trade networks expanded, how could a ruler track taxes from distant provinces? How could a temple record offerings from thousands of worshippers? After all, verifying the contents of a bulla required breaking the clay envelope — a cumbersome process for high-volume administration.
So, there was an increasing need for a more scalable system. How to solve this? As usual, the solution was hiding in plain sight. After all, the most important piece from the token-and-bulla system was the markings outside the bulla.
Written Era (~ 3500 BCE)
Around 3500 BCE, Mesopotamian civilizations developed cuneiform writing, while Egyptians created hieroglyphics. By 1200 BCE, China had independently developed its own writing system. These writing systems evolved from pictographs to more abstract symbols representing sounds and concepts. Writing enabled humans to overcome the limitations of oral communication in terms of time and space. It facilitated precise record-keeping, the establishment of laws, the documentation of religious texts, and the creation of literature. However, early writing systems were often restricted to scribal elites, reinforcing social hierarchies.
Print Era (~ 868 CE)
Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the movable type printing press transformed how information was accessed and shared in Europe. Printing technologies had already been developed in Asia centuries earlier. Woodblock printing emerged in Tang Dynasty China as early as 868 CE, exemplified by the Diamond Sutra, the oldest surviving printed book. By the early 13th century, the Korean movable type advanced this technology, using bronze alloys to create reusable typecasting methods.
For the first time, written materials became widely available to the public. By 1500, more than 20 million volumes had been printed across Europe, democratizing knowledge access and significantly accelerating ideas spread during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods.
However, it also disrupted traditional power structures. The Reformation benefited immensely from this technology; reformers like Martin Luther disseminated their critiques of Catholicism widely through printed pamphlets.
The spread of printing presses beyond Europe also influenced colonial expansion. In the Americas, presses were established by European settlers to produce religious texts that supported colonial ideologies while suppressing Indigenous oral traditions and knowledge systems.
Anti-literacy laws were enacted across America’s South to maintain the institution of slavery by denying enslaved people access to education. In 1830, North Carolina passed a law explicitly criminalizing the teaching of enslaved people to read or write, stating that literacy had “a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion.” These laws reflected the understanding among slaveholders that knowledge was power. Literate enslaved individuals could forge documents such as passes or free papers, aiding escape attempts. They also contributed to abolitionist movements by writing letters, narratives, and literature exposing the inhumanity of slavery.
Consider Frederick Douglass, the most important movement leader for African-American civil rights in the 19th century. Initially, Sophia Auld, the wife of his master Hugh Auld, taught him the alphabet when he was around 12 years old in Baltimore. However, Hugh Auld soon forbade her from continuing, arguing that literacy would make Douglass “unmanageable” as a slave.
After formal lessons ended, Douglass befriended white children in the neighborhood and exchanged bread for reading lessons.
This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge.
— Frederick Douglass
Douglass observed carpenters marking timber at a shipyard to learn writing and copied their letters. He practiced writing in secret using his master’s son’s discarded spelling books. Douglas would challenge white boys by claiming he could write as well as they could. When they expressed disbelief, Douglass would write the letters he knew, and the white boys would write letters they knew.
In this way I got a good many lessons in writing, which it is quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way.
— Frederick Douglass
Over seven years, he taught himself to read and write fully, laying the foundation for his future as an abolitionist leader and writer.
The abolitionist cause in the United States found a formidable ally in the printed word. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852, had an unprecedented commercial success, selling 300,000 copies in the United States alone during its first year of publication. Its reach extended far beyond American borders, with over two million copies sold worldwide.
Electronic Era (~1850 CE)
Telegraph, telephone, radio, and television transformed communication by enabling near-instantaneous communication across vast distances. Radio transmissions and the development of television created broadcast media capable of reaching mass audiences simultaneously.
This era marked the first time radio was widely used as a weapon of psychological warfare through radio propaganda during World War II. By the late 1930s, radio had become an indispensable part of daily life, with over 90% of American households owning a radio and a similar penetration in Germany. This widespread accessibility made radio an ideal tool for both the Axis and Allied powers to spread propaganda and undermine enemy resolve.
The Nazi regime, under the guidance of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, was particularly adept at leveraging radio’s potential. Goebbels delivered a speech titled “Radio as the Eighth Great Power” in which he positioned radio as a revolutionary medium that would define the 20th century, much like the press had shaped the 19th century. Goebbels referenced Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous characterization of the press as “the seventh great power” after the traditional Great Powers of Europe that dominated international relations and diplomacy in the 18th and 19th centuries.
To ensure maximum exposure, the Nazis subsidized the production of affordable “people’s receivers” (volksempfänger), making it possible for nearly every German household to tune in to their broadcasts. Both sides broadcast into enemy territories, attempting to demoralize opponents and influence occupied populations. The Allies, for instance, used radio to broadcast messages of hope and resistance to those living under Nazi occupation. Conversely, Axis powers employed charismatic figures like “Tokyo Rose” and “Axis Sally” to target Allied soldiers with demoralizing messages.
These efforts were complemented by a sophisticated blend of entertainment and propaganda designed to captivate audiences while subtly reinforcing Nazi ideology. Lili Marleen became the most popular song of World War II, enjoyed by both combatant forces, and was used as a propaganda tool because it had universal appeal. The song’s sentimental lyrics and catchy melody resonated with soldiers on both sides, evoking feelings of nostalgia and longing for home.
Video Credit: Petr Radziwill
Digital Network Era (~1990 CE)
The World Wide Web established a global information network. Innovations such as email, instant messaging, and early search engines transformed how people communicated and accessed information. This period marked a shift from analog to digital methods, with computers becoming essential tools for communication. Early online forums, blogs, and websites laid the groundwork for the forthcoming social media revolution.
Social platforms have changed communication from one-to-many to many-to-many models, resulting in new social dynamics. The introduction of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter created ecosystems of user-generated content, further transforming how people connect and share information. Digital communication technologies have simultaneously empowered grassroots movements while strengthening authoritarian controls.
During The Arab Spring (early 2010s), Facebook and Twitter enabled activists to bypass state-controlled media, coordinate protests, and amplify demands for political reform. Authoritarian regimes responded by Internet blackouts (Egypt shut down nationwide internet access for five days in 2011), social media monitoring to track dissent or counter-propaganda where pro-regime bots and troll farms flooded platforms with disinformation to discredit activists.
Post–Arab Spring, digital authoritarianism became institutionalized, with China exporting its “Great Firewall” model to allied regimes. This model enables these governments to block access to selected foreign websites, throttle cross-border Internet traffic, and deploy AI-driven surveillance systems. This digital repression fits, unfortunately, quite well with social media algorithms that exploit human cognitive biases, trapping users in self-reinforcing echo chambers.
With the massive data that social applications hold on us, we should be wary of our confirmation bias and the media diet we are fed by an algorithm. Confirmation bias looks like this: whenever we encounter a new piece of information, we instinctively judge it. If it fits our worldview, we are inclined to accept it; if it contradicts our perspective, we are tempted to dismiss it. Perhaps we’ve come across a link that only superficially touched a bit of misogyny or conspiracy. Maybe we’ve watched it entirely, commented on or shared the link with some friends, perhaps even disapproved of it. We didn’t think twice about it and continued our day. But the algorithm remembers. So the next time we are on the platform, to drive a bit more engagement, the algorithm plays some similar media repeatedly, learning about our preferences and keeping us engaged for longer and longer in a walled garden.
Enter virtual social bubbles and echo chambers where our biases are distorted and amplified because engaging with social media algorithms is autocatalytic (the process feeds itself).
For example, social media can make us feel jealous, angry, hateful even. We start feeling bad about ourselves, maybe experiencing a nagging sensation that we are not enough. So, we check more social media to find a tribe where we belong, a community where we feel at peace, scattering negative messages about other tribes that made us feel conflicted about ourselves.
These dynamics fuel extremist movements. Platforms like YouTube and TikTok use engagement metrics to push increasingly radical content, such as hyper-masculine influencers promoting misogynistic ideologies or far-right conspiracy theories. The 2021 U.S. Capitol riot and incel-linked attacks show only how close online radicalization can spill into offline action.
The influence algorithms have on all of us, particularly our vulnerable and developing youth, is deeply concerning. Studies show that within just minutes of use, social media algorithms begin directing children toward potentially harmful content.
After as little as two hours and 32 minutes of viewing videos, the vast majority of content being fed to the ‘boys’’ accounts [fake accounts] was toxic, the study found.
TikTok was recommending 76% toxic content after being watched for an average of just 2 hours and 32 minutes.
YouTube Shorts was recommending 78% toxic content after its videos were watched for three hours and 20 minutes.
And once the account showed any interest in watching toxic content, the amount of that content rapidly increased.
“There is a clear link between the growing levels of online abuse and toxicity experienced by women and girls, and the recent rise in male supremacism online,” the study said.
Irish Examiner article, Children fed toxic content by social media algorithms, study finds
The researchers suggest that the recommender algorithms should be turned off by default. But another study discovered that many teens view these algorithmic recommendations as accurate reflections of themselves, willingly trading privacy for what they perceive as a reliable mirror of their identity. A surprising finding was that while the teens interviewed by the study understand their “for you” feed is shaped by their scrolling habits within a platform, they seem largely unaware or unconcerned about cross-app data collection. They accept the algorithmic curation without questioning its potential impact to their personal development.
Mastodon, a decentralized, open-source social networking platform similar to Twitter and Facebook, and the broader Fediverse (Pixelfed, a decentralized photo-sharing service akin to Instagram; PeerTube, a decentralized video hosting and sharing platform; Lemmy, a federated link aggregator and discussion platform similar to Reddit) represent a significant shift in social media architecture, mirroring the original decentralized vision of the World Wide Web. The Fediverse, a portmanteau of “federated” and “universe,” is an interconnected network of social platforms communicating through the ActivityPub protocol, which enables the aforementioned social media services to interact seamlessly. This interoperability is a key feature of the Fediverse, allowing users on different platforms to communicate without being confined to a single service (just as a Google email account can send and email to an Outlook email account).
The decentralized nature of the Fediverse provides users with autonomy to select instances that align with their values and moderation preferences, along with the ability to migrate between instances without losing followers. Additionally, the network’s distributed structure enhances resistance to censorship.
Despite its advantages, Fediverse’s decentralized model faces challenges such as network centralization risks (where a few large instances dominate) and governance complexities where instance admins wield significant control (e.g., blocking entire servers), risking authoritarian tendencies. Managing one’s own experience, including choosing instances and navigating federation rules, can be overwhelming for new users accustomed to more streamlined platforms where all we need is done through one or two clicks.
Generative AI Era (Late 2022 CE)
The public release of ChatGPT in late 2022 has marked the dramatic rise of generative AI (a subset of artificial intelligence that creates original content, such as text, images, videos, audio, or code, in response to a user’s prompt or request). This technology is rapidly normalizing artificial intelligence in everyday communication, even if these systems can produce convincing but factually incorrect information, commonly referred to as “hallucinations”.
Generative AI’s capabilities remain unevenly distributed across global populations, as millions and milions of jobs will potentially be displaced or replaced. On top of that, the ethical corners of the training LLMs (large language models) on enormous copyrighted datasets are nowhere near ready to be discussed within and across societies. Consider the “Is This What We Want?” album, released in February 2025, a silent protest by over 1,000 musicians against proposed UK copyright law changes that would allow AI companies to use artists’ work without permission. Further on, English is the de facto lingua franca of the training datasets, threatening marginalizing linguistic diversity. The proliferation of deepfakes, hyper-realistic synthetic media (e.g., fabricated speeches of world leaders, nonconsensual explicit content targeting women, etc.) has upended traditional notions of truth and trust.
So, what happens next? To make any futuristic predictions, we must first find the common threads of these communication patterns across eras.
Bibliography:
Denise Schmandt-Besserat – The Evolution of Writing