In our day an age, to ask someone would they give up their phone for a telegraph, they would probably give an answer like, “are you crazy?” Now go back 120 years and you’ll see how the telephone effected society on a social level, in what you lost on an identity level with letters and morse code of the telegraph, you gained a more personal atmosphere with the person on the other end of the line. Just like the telegraph it made a huge impact when it was released to the public, but the telephone was on an even bigger scale as it went worldwide in day one apposed to the telegraph which only a started in Europe at first.
The telegraph was a great device for communication, if you wanted to feel helpless about whether your message made it to the recipient. Now of course I’m not going to badger the telegraph because without it Alexander Bell wouldn’t have had the motivation to improve upon and create the telephone. I digress the telegraph was very impersonal in the fact that you had to type your message out in morse code and the receiver of course didn’t know if it was really you except for maybe how the message was presented through certain which developed an identity. Identity was a necessity in the time of the telegraph because it gave oneself a sense of privacy knowing that no one else could take that away, almost like a social security number but it couldn’t be stolen and used against you. This is what gave the telegraph an appealing look and took communication to the next level, as it was quicker and more efficient than a simple letter that could take days to receive.
What the telephone is today is not what it used to be, but nonetheless this isn’t the present, I’m talking about 1867 and the impact that this communication device had on the world as a whole. Alexander Bell was a great innovator who set his mind on improving the telegraph in ways that you wouldn’t have to deal with code, but would actually be able here the voice of who was sending you a message. Of course you might be wondering how this takes identity out of the equation and then throws in a personal concept by using this device. To understand this you must look at how when your using a telephone you are having a personal conversation between you and the other person at the end of the receiver unlike with identity which is just dealing with your signature, campus id, etc. This made the consumer feel more comfortable that whatever they were saying was just between them and the receiver. This brought forth personality, cause you can’t get personal with someone without developing one. I mean personality is always with you, but it’s different when you’re on the phone that you seem to act differently and even talk differently. The telephone helped with that because what if someone was maybe uncomfortable to talk to someone in person because hey had a shady personality, then the telephone worked in their favor that they could convey a message by just dialing a number and so forth. The telephone was to key to getting personal, but it was the person that had to develop a personality to be able to handle new freedom which would only get stronger in the years to come into the future.
The development of the telephone brought people closer together knowing tat there loved ones would be receiving their message at the second it left their mouth, then on a business perspective, it was prefect for consulting other business for trading or which product had the most sales. This brought forth new life in communication that wasn’t there before with the impersonal mechanized aspect of telling someone to send a message to their loved in this code that made you feel like drone accepting and sending messages. What the telephone couldn’t do on an identity level it made up for on the personal side, because that is what the consumer really wanted in that you can send a message to someone in the hopes that they receive, but knowing that they are there listening to every word you say makes you feel more in touch with them. Bell brought forth the new age in communication because of his need or improvement and to make things easier on the everyday consumer and he succeed. Just look at today and what has become of his invention that took identity twisted it around and produced personality.
No comments:
Post a Comment