TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2022 - PHONES

 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2022 - PHONES

This week (and last week) I’m looking at technology changes.  Today, I’m writing about phones.  What a change!!

The first phone I remember was a black phone on the wall at my home in Cedar Rapids Iowa.  It was a phone - with a rotary dial - and it was used to make phone calls.  I was told that making too many phone calls was expensive.  Especially long-distance calls.  I don’t know if there was a standard such as 100 calls for the basic rate and then some additional fee for calls over 100.  

When I went to college, my parents told me to make a “person-to-person” phone call with a strange name.  They would not accept the call but called me back immediately at the phone number of the one phone on the dorm floor.  (Somehow then I didn’t have to pay for the call - and with the dorm phone that served all the residents on that floor,  that made sense.)

I didn’t make many phone calls (and I still don’t).  (I think that the trauma of making long-distance phone calls is somehow buried in my brain).  

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TELEPHONES

(all quotes from: https://www.elon.edu/u/imagining/time-capsule/

Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. Bell began his research in 1874 and had financial backers who gave him the best business plan for bringing it to market.

By 1900 there were nearly 600,000 phones in Bell’s telephone system; that number shot up to 2.2 million phones by 1905, and 5.8 million by 1910. In 1915 the transcontinental telephone line began operating.

Within 50 years of its invention, the telephone had become an indispensable tool in the United States.

President Rutherford B. Hayes to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 on viewing the telephone for the first time: “That’s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”

This device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase.”

“Yet, the invention of the telephone also worked to increase privacy in many ways. It permitted people to exchange information without having to put it in writing, and a call on the phone came to replace such intrusions on domestic seclusion as unexpected visits from relatives or neighbors and the pushy patter of door-to-door salesmen.

(A quick comment on the last paragraph.  For me at age 75, in the past three weeks (with Medicare enrollment time), I have had oodles of phone calls from Medicare options - intrusion still occurs.  Most of the time, I have my iPhone on mute - which means I miss a lot of calls - some are legitimate but most are “spam” calls!!)

So, here we are in 2022 - 146 years after Bell’s patent.  “Everybody” (not quite a true generalization) has a phone - and most of those phones are cell phones with internet capabilities.  (More on the internet later this week).  

But, phones have morphed into more than just for making calls. I’m writing this in the morning, and so far, I’ve been on my phone for maybe an hour and have not made a single call.  I’ve used my phone to view email, and social media, do a daily crossword, do my daily Bible Reading, do the Wordle game, do my German language lesson on Duolingo, and check the weather.  

While I haven’t so far taken any pictures, I probably will by the end of the day.  I no longer own a camera, my phone is my camera.  My phone keeps track of my fitness steps, keeps my appointments, allows me to instantly communicate via email and text (without using the actual speaking aspects of a phone), and gives me entertainment.  I listen to classical music on Pandora and on YouTube.  One of the minor reasons I wanted to work part-time is to listen (on my phone) to Pandora without the ads - so my work is paying for ad-free music.  

And …. Unfortunately, I can waste a LOT of time on my phone with games, even with learning (like Duolingo German language study), and checking out news, and asking Google for information.

I can even pay for some of my purchases with just my phone - with Apple Pay (and others).  

I misplaced my phone about a year ago and went three days without it.  I survived (barely).  (Of course, I have the internet at home so I could still do some of the basic things with my phone.)

In terms of phone service - that ranges from some of the cheaper options (like Consumer Cellular, and Mint) to the established options (AT&T and Verizon).  In other options, there are two basic operating system options for phones (really more), Apple - IOS, and Google. 

And, of course, like Dick Tracy of the comics from years ago, wrist phones are available, and seeing the person you are calling (aka “Video calls”) are available.

Can you imagine a world without phones?  One group asks people to go without electronic communication for a day.  Could you go without your phone, your internet, your television, texts, emails, or social media for a day?  

I think I could go for a day without my phone.  (I almost did that on my vacation in August, but I needed the GPS (global positioning system) on my phone to help me find my direction.

*****

Tomorrow, more technology - the Internet!!!

LOVE WINS!!!

(If you are ready this, you are on some form of internet connection!!!)

Karen White, October 25, 2022, ©