Clearly, mediated communication is changing the way we experience the world and broadening the range of people and groups with whom we regularly interact. In the United States today, some 70 percent of American adults use broadband (high-speed Internet) at home (Zickuhr & Smith, 2013). In addition, 63 percent of adult cell phone owners access the Internet via their phones or tablets (Duggan, 2013). We communicate electronically more and more each year, and now more than one generation of adults worldwide are “digital natives” who have grown up with these technologies (Joiner et al., 2013; Prensky, 2012). Through the Internet, we connect not only with far-off family and friends but also with individuals from around the country—or around the world—when we participate in online gaming, watch YouTube videos, or comment on others’ blogs.

In addition to the newer media technologies, more traditional media also enable exposure to people from different cultures. Calls to customer service centers are answered in other parts of the country or on the other side of the world. Radio stations bring international music and news right to your car. And television offers glimpses of cultures we might not be a part of—including British situation comedies on BBC America, soccer games broadcast from South America, and foreign films presented on the Independent Film Channel. American TV programming also has increasingly diverse casts.