What's Changed in the World. Part 2 - Communication

I think that it's in communications that the greatest changes have occurred in the past few decades.

Of course the computer has been a transforming invention. Once upon a time, computers were very large and only businesses, government, and scientific research establishments were able to have them.

Then, in the early 1980s we began to see small home computers. Then Apple, with its computers that had a graphical user interface, and then later MicroSoft's Windows, began to make computers sufficiently user-friendly that everyone could learn to use one. Now many universities require incoming students to have a computer, and even high school students consider having a computer to be necessary for doing their homework. As of 2010, it is estimated that there is nearly one computer for every resident of the United States and Canada.*

Computers and the Internet have changed so much of our lives: how we date, how we shop, and much more. Interpersonal relations have been transformed by computers, in particular by the Internet and "social networking" web sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Cell phones, which rely on what is essentially computer technology, have also transformed our lives. I just read that many young people have never used a phone with a cord ("except at my grandparents'"). And who writes letters nowadays? Anything written and mailed is scorned as "snail mail" and ridiculously slow and old-fashioned—all this to the detriment of the post office, which has seen mail volume drop because of the use of email, not to mention the FAX machine--which now has been around for more than 30 years and thus is not thought of as an innovation anymore.

We have new ways of spending our time: using social networking sites, sending and reading email, texting, and so forth. And, as I wrote in an earlier post, so many of us now seem very committed to doing one or more of these activities at the same time as something else: for example, talking on the cell phone while driving, shopping, etc.

The cell phone looks like one of those cases where fact has caught up with science fiction. Anyone old enough to remember the comic strip Dick Tracy might remember that Dick had a "two-way wrist radio" (and then, later, a "two-way wrist TV"). Then the "Star Trek" characters on TV had their "communicators." These fictional wireless communication devices now look like nothing but anticipations of the cell phone.

In an emergency, you no longer have to (as in a scene from an old movie) knock on the door of some strangers when you are stuck on a stormy night. You no longer have to look for a phone booth. You no longer have to ask anyone to use the phone in their home or place of business. Pay phones are disappearing, being removed from public places. They are going the way of the buggy whip.

Think of how the cell phone has transformed our lives. No one is ever out of touch anymore—with their bosses, their families, their friends. (I personally think that being unreachable has its good points; and I guess that someone who wanted to be out of touch could be: we can always shut those cell phones off. But I doubt that very many people do.)

And, I could go on about the "smart phone," and all the marvelous things that has made possible. But I don't own one so maybe I'm not aware of the most important and transformative things that they have made possible.

With the spread of wireless phones, many individuals and families no longer have a phone with a cord. And, does anybody remember telegrams? They were used to sending messages of congratulations when I was a kid, but earlier they were a primary method of communication. They were probably particularly useful for overseas communications because international phone calls were very, very expensive. Telegrams were not fast, by today's standards, but they were faster than what we now call "snail mail" letters. Now gone and mostly forgotten. Western Union, the telegraph and telegram company, survived into more recent times by "wiring" money.

* http://www.technewsreview.com.au/article.php?article=9967

Note added 8/30: With so many amazing apps for the smart phone appearing daily, I think this is going to be a truly transformative technology.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

The Fast Pace of Life

I have a friend who, when he calls me, is always doing something else at the same time. Either he's driving as he's talking on his cell phone, which I think is a bad idea; or he's shopping, so that what he's saying to me is interspersed with his comments to someone in the store; or he's doing something that makes crashing noises, thus affronting my eardrums on this end of the phone.

I've asked him why he can't call me while he's just sitting at home and not doing anything else. He said, Yeah, his grandmother would just sit and talk on the phone. He doesn't have the time to just talk on the phone, he has to use what time he's got to take care of more than one thing.

And of course the compulsion to multi-task is not unique to my friend. I have seen how common it is, and you have, too. I once worked for a man who would be doing at least three, sometimes four things at once: talking to me as well as someone else in his office, fielding phone calls, receiving delivery of a suit. I know it would simply make me nuts if I tried doing that.

Another time I was at Starbucks and a young woman came in and made her coffee purchase, all the while talking on her cell phone. Once she left, besides having her coffee to drink, she lit a cigarette, got in her car, and drove off —and might have still been engaged in her phone conversation. How do you manage all that: the phone, the coffee, the cigarette, plus driving the car? Well, first you set the coffee down on the roof of the car while you unlock the door. . . .

Yes, like my friend, people—at least people younger than I am—feel that they are not using their precious time efficiently if they are not doing more than one thing at once. Think what this means. We all feel so much pressure, we feel we haven't got enough of time in our day. We can't even imagine idleness.

And we not only must busy ourselves with multiple tasks at once, anything we accomplish must be executed quickly. Take driving. Anyone who drives can see how so many drivers clearly are in a hurry. Drive like crazy, even if you're hurrying to get to that red light up ahead! (Note to drivers: you're wasting gas by doing that.) In the downtowns of big cities, people walk real fast: hurry to get to work on time, hurry to get back from lunch on time, hurry to catch your commuter train home. Woe be to him who has to cross the surging stream of humanity or worse, try to swim upstream!

There is an expression in Italian, dolce far niente, meaning It's sweet to do nothing. Well, nowadays it must make people feel guilty if they have an idle moment or a moment to relax. What ever happened to taking a moment to breathe, to smell the roses, to clear your mind? To get your bearings, to reflect? I have to think that people who meditate, and maybe those whose religious practices include praying several times a day, may be on to a good thing if it just gives them a moment's pause from the hectic pace of their lives.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein