Most human beings constantly struggle with the task of growing up. Throughout our lifetime, we try to become increasingly mature in our intellectual and social behavior, to gain increasedrecognition from those whose judgments we respect and to find out more about this person who walks around within our physical body and who responds to our name.

A young person growing up in any culture faces constantly certain lessons that he must learn. These required lessons result from the interaction between the child's maturity body and the pressures of his social and physical environment. These learnings are essential in the sense that they are necessary for a resonably adequate life as a person --- a life that is happy and that results in an effective and satisfying membership in a social group.

In the bright lexicon of youth, there may not be the word "communication," but in the manifold behavior of youth, acts of communication have an important role. Reading, seeing and listening play a large part in the child's life.

What is Communication?

Generally speaking, communication is the transmissionof symbols from a person or group of persons to another person or another group. It is the means by which individuals influence each other and are influenced in turn. It is the basic "carrier" of the social process. It is the basis which makes man a social being, able to cooperate with others and to engage in socially useful interaction. It makes experience predictable and produces a semblance of order out of implicit chaos.

If we communicate, we are trying to share an information, an idea, or an attitude. This process operates through various media of communication -- through the public media (newspaper, radio, film, magazines, books, etc.) and through the major private medium of conversation. The basic tool of communication which relates the individual to the social environment is language, "the accumulation of symbolized human experiences."

Four factors are necessary for the communication process to function. There must be a communicator. There must be a recipient. There must be the communication content. And there is ultimately the question of the effect of communication. "Who says what to whom and with what effect" is a classic description of the communication process.

Communication is interaction. It is usually a two-way process, involving stimulation and response among organisms and it is both reciprocal and alternating. These responses evoked by one communique in turn become a communication, each may be both response and stimulus.

Let the reader imagine, if he can, how he would feel if suddenly he were cut off from all communication with his fellows past or present. His would be a completely solitary existence, since it is only through communication that he is able to make and maintain contact with other individuals. No message of any kind could come to him. He could have no sense of "belonging." He could feel no stir of community living; nor could he in any situation obtain help. Able neither to serve nor to be served, it is likely that in a short time he could no longer even continue to exist.