Another old piece, that still seems to have relevance:
Human communication is influenced by the technology used to communicate. Ostensibly, this seems an obvious statement of a simple relationship. In the 21st century, we observe on a daily basis people (usually people young that we are– this statement is true of almost anyone who is in the group “we”) asking “where are you?” to the person on the other end of a cell phone conversation. This was not a question overheard when I was a youngster. In the 1970’s, phone calls occurred between buildings as much as between people. On occasion, my family would get a phone call from my father, who was a medium-haul truck driver, and we would ask “where are you?” He never had to ask where we were… he knew we were within about 6 feet of the phone in the kitchen, or perhaps within 10 feet of the downstairs phone.
As late as 1990, I recall being on a trip (four guys in a car trying to get to four different baseball stadiums in fours state in four days). My wife knew our group had mis-planned: we were planning to go to a evening game in Milwaukee, but the game was scheduled for an afternoon start. My wife knew it, but she had no way to let me know. Hours later (after we had driven from Milwaukee to Chicago to see a game at Comisky Park, the same stadium we had been in the previous night) and hours or two towards Cleveland after the game, we stopped at a long-forgotten rest area, and I called my wife. She was wondering what we had done.
Now, jump forward only a few years. It is early in the first decade of the 21st century, and I am at a camp in northern New York with my son. In the Adirondack woods, we can hear and see the storm gathering, so I called my wife on the cell phone. She is at home and can turn on the television, and watch a moving radar image of the storms within about a 100 mile radius of our home, and we are within that radius. She assures me there is a storm heading our way, but that it is a small cell and showing only yellow on the radar screen.
In a more humorous example, my family purchased new cell phones, and my teenage sons spent the hour before dinner making sure all of their friends had their new numbers and entering contacts into their new phones. At dinner, the boys are sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen eating French fries and cheeseburgers. My 13-year old is intensely composing a text message He places his phone down and the 16-year old son’s phone (which is on the table were his computer is located in the room adjacent to the kitchen). The 16 year old walks across the room, picks up his phone, and reads the message. He then walks back to the breakfast bar and hands the ketchup to his brother.
Has anyone else ever carried on a conversation over text messages with the person sitting in the next seat? (I have been guilty when at high school basketball games, high school graduations, and even family reunions.)
In a more serious situation, my wife was able to hold a cell phone conversation with surgeons in May of 2008. She was riding in the back of the car being driven by my son. They were making a two-hour drive from the hospital near out home town to a large hospital associated with our state university. I was already at the hospital, in the emergency room, and the doctors were preparing to remove a blood clot from the base of my brain. My wife found out first that I was still alive (when I was loaded on the helicopter, the emergency room physicians suggested my family plan for the worst, as I was likely to die on the helicopter), then she was able to confirm with the surgeons I had no allergies, and was taking only limited medications. (She is sure she provided other information, but she cannot recall the conversation.)
Clearly, when we think about the differences in telephone conversations in these stories from my life history, we can see differences. Whereas pre-cell phone days required a caller to find a device located on the end of a wire, and to now the address (phone number) of the phone where you expected the person to whom you wanted to speak was located. In those days, a single phone number was shared by a collection of people (in my family, my parents and my brother and I shared the same number). Now, rather than calling a phone located in the place where you expect to find the person, you call the phone carried by the person. We have come to expect only the person to whom we wish to speak to answer the phone. we expect to be identified as the incoming caller. We expect to be forwarded to the recipient’s voice mail if they do not answer. We have more numbers to remember. When I was young, my family of four had a single phone and a single phone number for all four of us. As an adult, my family of four has five numbers (one for each member, and one for the infrequently-used phone hanging on the wall in the kitchen). The number of numbers gets even worse, if you include the phone hanging on the wall in my classroom. Of course, I have no need to remember any numbers as I can look up any person who I want to speak with and with the click of a button, have my phone dial the number, so I am relieved of the duty of remembering the many numbers I need in order to stay in contact with my family.