The five most important technological advances in Electronic Communication are the telegraph, the telephone, radio/TV, the internet, and cell phones. 1. The telegraph (in my opinion) is by far the most important electronic communications development in our history. For millennia societies have communicated over long distances strictly using the physical environment; smoke screens, reflected light, pyres, etc., have been used long before electric technology was introduced. While effective, the physical environment can only “reach” so far; the electric telegraph enabled entire regions, countries, and governments to connect instantly. The ability to send messages- or simply communicate- via electric wires was undoubtedly the fastest leap communications has ever seen; in a matter of decades the world was covered in wires. The telegraph enabled globalization, better government communications, and a widespread need to speak to one another. While the telegraph is somewhat obsolete today, the invention opened the door to the telephone, the radio, and (quite literally) laid the foundation of all electric communications. http://classroom.synonym.com/significance-samuel-morse-inventing-telegraph-10183.html http://history1800s.about.com/od/inventioninnovation/a/telegraph01.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy 2. The second most important electronic development would be the telephone. Founded on the same ideas as the telegraph, the telephone enabled people to literally “send” their voices to one another. While the telegraph was the foundation, the telephone enabled a faster, cheaper, and more personable version of electronic communication. The practicality of a telephone cannot be overemphasized; while the initial cost of a phone was high in the early 1900’s, the ability to connect each individual home to another (or entire communities to another) was a huge