Why do we communicate?

65 years ago, Abraham Maslow wrote his paper on human needs, and it's standard text in most economics courses. He elegantly ranked human experience on 4 levels: Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem and Self-Actualization.



He wrote, and I agree (at least as far as gross generalizations go), that humans can only be motivated on a level if all other levels below are met.

The human desire to communicate is pervasive across all categories above Physiological, and consequently we're all keen to have communications links to others.

This is why, from the days of the telegraph, we are increasingly investing our resources on communicating, and this is increasing. In 2000, the telecom industry was worth about 2.5% of global GDP, now it's 3.5%, largely due to mobile phones which have tapped into the "safely" tab of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as well as enhanced all the others.

We (in developing countries) are now in a position where we assume remote communication capabilities, and we physically distribute ourselves with this assumption in mind. It's not so much "where do you live?", but "how reliable is your broadband/mobile?"

As the world retracts into what I believe will be an immensely protracted recession (compared to the 90's and 00's), our desire to communicate will not be affected. It's a basic need and can't now change.