In 1844 Samuel Morse transmitted the first telegraph message in the United States. That event marked the beginning of communicating over long distances. The telegraph became an important tool in the westward expansion. But it did have it’s limitations. You could communicate with a telegraph but it was relatively cumbersome.
In the 1870’s Alexander Graham Bell built a machine that enabled people to talk to each other directly. It was called the telephone. He wrote in 1878: “I believe in the future wires will unite the head offices of telephone companies in different cities, and a man in one part of the country may communicate by word of mouth with another in a distant place.”
The communication revolution was underway.
Fast forward to 1973. By then the telegraph had been pretty much retired, and direct line telephones were in almost every house in America. But telephones still had their limitations. We could only communicate through the vast network of wires we had constructed throughout the country. It was in that year of 1973 that the first working mobile or “wireless” phone was created. Illinois Bell opened the first commercial cellular system in October 1983. A new revolution was about to begin called the wireless age.
By the late 1990’s cell-phones became common-place, and by the year 2000 or so cell phones basically took over as the main means of communication for Americans.
The evolution has been remarkable. But even more remarkable is the fact that so many people would rather “type” and send messages (texting) than actually talk to the person you wish to communicate with.
Could someone explain this to me?
I mean, I realize I am just an “old fart” to you young people out there. Maybe I’m just not hip and with it enough to understand why someone would rather type out a message, rather than just call the person and talk to them. We left the telegraph far behind when given the opportunity. Once the telephone arrived we had no need to pay extra money to have our messages typed and sent. Why are people so eager to latch onto an inferior technology? And pay extra for the privelege?
Why is typing someone a message preferable to just dialing their number and talking to them?
Oh, I realize there are instances where texting makes perfect sense. You are at a funeral. Your business partner has a very important question they need an answer for immediately. You need to give them that information discreetly. I get that.
To me, that is the kind of instance texting was invented for. But the proliferation of casual or recreational texting simply boggles my mind.
I see 16 year old girls (who can barely drive under the best conditions to begin with) driving down the highway happily texting in between occasionally paying attention to their driving.
I have never sent a text message. I am still waiting for a situation that warrants it. I have had a cell-phone for 5 years or so, and in that time I have never had a situation that did. A few people have tried to text me and were met with indifference or an actual telephone call on my part.
And while teenagers blowing out their brains in car accidents while texting, and running up ridiculous texting charges mom and pop never dreamed of when they handed their kiddies a cell phone are tragic and needless enough, texting has brought about another tragedy that I as a writer find equally disturbing. Texting is seemingly the final nail in the coffin of the English language.
High schools were pumping out functionally illiterate graduates long before texting came along, but the ante has been raised even higher now. The kids realized quickly that texting using full and proper words and spellings simply took too long. Texting has taken the butchering of the English language to a whole new grotesque level.
Human nature is funny. I suspect that if the evolution of the cell phone had been reversed, if cell phones were invented with the capability to ONLY text, and the ability to actually talk to another person came at a later time, people that continued to do the majority of their cell commnication through the costlier and more cumbersome method of texting would be thought of along the same lines as your grandma who refuses to retire her rotary dial telephone. But since texting became an option only after cell phones were widely used for talking, I guess that makes it “with it and hip.”
Young people of America, the Emperor wears no clothes.
Texting is less efficient. Texting is more expensive. Texting while driving is even more dangerous than talking while driving. Texting will eventually cause your language and grammar skills to deteriorate to the point of no return. And texting is just one more way that we can cocoon ourselves away from actually communicating with other people on a human level.
The benefits of texting are few. Unless you are a cell phone provider that has somehow hoodwinked an entire generation into throwing their money and lives away on an inferior technology.
P.T. Barnum was right.
