Analog and Digital Communications

In general, the terms analog and digital refer to their computer-related meanings, that is, digital is the representation of data in binary language (the language of computers), while analog is nondigitized and noncomputerized, often not merely nondigital but predigital (referring to technologies up until the late 1990s). Since the digital revolution first swept across much of the industrialized world in the 1990s, the increasing transformation of analog goods and services into digital goods and services is referred to as digitalization, and various emerging forms of digitally mediated communication (i.e., communication that is augmented by information technology) permeate nearly every aspect of society.

This development has drastically changed how individuals communicate: how they work and play, how they choose to socialize, and even how they choose to ...