By Kenta Sugawara

There are various ways to communicate with someone outside of your country, such as writing letters, using a traditional phone or a cell-phone, or by visiting them by airplane, which doesnﾕt take long compared to the days ships were the main form of transportation to cross the ocean. But, nowadays, there is a more convenient and useful tool to communicate with someone instantly no matter where they are and without concerning how long it takes them to get the message. That is the Internet. The Internet has both positive and negative aspects. What do people need to understand when they want to learn the cultural and social differences of another society?

The Internet allows more possibilities and opportunities to meet other people compared with 10 years ago when the Internet first became available to everyone. Especially, instant messaging services give everyone a chance to talk with friends who live in foreign countries in that it is like talking with them in real time in a chat-room, which makes it feel as if they were actually meeting face-to-face. This technology not only makes people happy because they can meet their friends wherever they are, but it also helps them understand cultural and social differences from one country to another through communication.

However, the latest technologies are also easy to cause social and cultural misunderstandings among people. For example, the progress of technologies such as cable and satellite TV seem to make it easy to acquire information on the social and cultural atmosphere of foreign countries. To be specific, in Japan there are many American TV shows and movies that are very popular. We are told that every TV station in Japan that is broadcasted by air waves will switch to Cable TV by 2011. This fact will cause the Japanese to watch more and more American TV shows and movies. However, it is dangerous to learn the social and cultural differences only from TV, because this one way information tends to make one believe the stereotypical ideas of the other countriesﾕ social and cultural atmosphere.

On the other hand, chatting by instant messaging services or writing E-mail seems better than using the other technologies in terms of learning social and cultural differences. However, there is one thing people need to pay attention to when using the Internet. That is, people shouldnﾕt become addicted to it. Some people never want to meet in person the people who they meet on-line. That means they donﾕt know who is talking to them in the real world. Some researchers believe that one of the reasons of increasing violent acts among children is due to communicate on the Internet, because they donﾕt seem to know how to communicate in real life. Many people agree with this opinion and it would be better to use the Internet to communicate after they have met and know each other well first.

Although there are many ways to communicate when learning social and cultural differences it is really important to understand that communication is conducted by people. Think about the following fact: Cultures were created by humans and humans made societies, and the unions of societies that were made by humans became countries. Those steps will always be involved in communication between humans. It is impossible to understand social and cultural differences without talking with foreigners who know about their countries as opposed to the visual information from TV. If people want to know about another country, the best way to do it without misunderstanding is to make friends who are from another country you want to know about and hangout with them as much as possible. After that, chatting on an instant messaging service and writing E-mail to your friends will be a rewarding experience.