Throughout human history, communication methods have evolved from the completely simple to the fairly complex. Heres a quick overview of where humans have come from to arrive at todays standard of instantaneous, near global communique.
In the beginning of mans communication efforts, Homo Sapiens communicated much as apes do today. This was via grunts, clicks, and other noises, as well as a sprinkling of gesticulations such as arm waving, pointing, hitting, snarling, fighting, biting, and by creating repetitive sounds, such as tapping a stick on a rock. These were no doubt effective, as they are today, in announcing ones intentions.
One day, an intrepid thinker managed to manipulate their vocal cords while exhaling, and no doubt was surprised to have created a different type of sound than usual. Over many years, demonstrating this ability to other humans who successfully imitated it, speech came into being. Eventually, an entire language was born and utilized, followed by an alphabet which labeled the sounds.
Once language was in place, the written word took off, followed in turn by the telephone. This extremely clever device allowed for conversations between people who werent in the same room, which really expanded humanitys horizons. Typewriters came along as well, and eventually were replaced by electronic keyboards which fed material onto a computer screen. Once the internet was widely adopted, these correspondences could be shared with anyone who possessed an account allowing internet access.
Becoming used to the immediacy and high arrival rates of emails, people gravitated towards texting on beepers, devices which allowed text communication only, and were able to be carried easily on ones person. Swiftly, people carried this writing style over to their cell phones, which had arrived for pedestrian, public use around the same time that the internet started to become widely adopted, in the early 1990s.
All of these advances have allowed people to stay in touch with one another as never before in history. While certain methods seem to have begun to head towards obsolescence, such as writing letters by hand, communication in human society has never been so prevalent.