historically, mediated communication was much rarer than the face-to-face method. even though humans possessed the technology to communicate in space and time for millennia, the majority of the world's population lacked skills such as literacy to use them. this began to change in europe with the invention of the printing press by johannes gutenberg that led to the spread of printed texts and rising literacy from the 15th century. separately, the first print culture was chinese in origin. whatever the tradition, face-to-face interaction has begun to steadily lose ground to mediated communication.