Chapter 1

1. I think that is hard to say without being somewhat insulting.  While my mother is learning some new things with her job and thinking about going back to college, my father probably rarely learns anything new because to learn new things, sometimes it is necessary to have previous knowledge on the subject.  The information age can be so amazing, but to this point it has taken the combined knowledge and creativity of many people.  I think a part of the reason why the information age is so detrimental to the evolution of society is because of things that we learn in school today. Even while watching a show like, Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader, I often find myself in awe of the things that they are learning today in school-- education is growing too and expanding on their teaching techniques and methods of learning to ensure that as many kids as possible are walking away with knowledge. I would describe the story as a building, with each stone of information necessary to the whole building and would create problems if a stone was missing.
2. Convergence means the combining of everything that I need right at my fingertips. Take for instance, my phone.  With my Droid, I can surf the internet, text, use a gps system, look up information, look for deals in my local area, email my professors, watch youtube videos, stream music, have an alarm system, and call people (just a small list of the capabilties). 
3. I hope that the future won't be something like Walle, where everything  was so readily accessible at my fingertips that the whole nation grows to be obese and forgets the joys of real human interaction and the amazing things that the human body is capable of.  With information, there are so many things left to do with it, and new ways to expand the human brain and on previous human knowledge.  One thing that disgusts me is the large amount of "trolls" found online-- not even ones on random faceless forums but even on facebook the anti-semantic, racist, sexist, homophobic, and hate-language comes though, and I know these people!  I would like to see the information age spreading education and knowledge to people who have their prejudices, bigotry, and injustices towards things that they don't fully understand. I want to see love and peace come with information.
4. A text message falls under the M part of the SMCR. I would be the source, my text would be the message, the phone would be the channel, and my friend would be the reciever.
5. Perhaps, if I have enough friends, but I think mass communication is talking more on the hundreds to thousands minimum, and I while I acknowledge that I have met a lot of people in my 19 years, it is probably not enough to qualify as mass.  I also think mass has more to do with accessibility being widespread, such as newspapers, radio, and television.