To be human in today's world means that you engage in constant linguistic interactions with some form of technology, from your smart phone to your refrigerator. That's not as new a trend as you might think.

Language has shaped - and been shaped by - some of our world's most significant communication technologies. Our current language bears the marks of millennia of interaction between humans and our technologies, beginning with the very first primitive writing systems and moving into the age of the printing press, the telegraph, and the typewriter.

Yet, at no other point in our history have technology and language been so enmeshed. Technology uses language to "communicate" a steady stream of information to us, not to mention helping us to communicate with each other.

By studying and analyzing the relationship between humans and their technology, we begin to understand what makes our unique form of communication, which we call language, unique to humans. We learn about who we are today in the 21st century and how we became these complicated, modern-day technolinguistic beings.