Communication:

Who remembers letter writing as communication?  

If you made a friend who did not live locally and wanted to keep in touch or were going away for the summer and wanted to share your experiences with a close friend, you wrote letters. Long-distance phone calls were expensive, and you were charged by the minute, so not a good option for a lengthy conversation.  

As someone who always enjoyed writing, I loved handwriting a letter to a friend sharing recent life events. Of course, we needed a fair bit of patience because, after the writing, the letter had to be mailed and then came the waiting period. It could take up to a week for a letter to reach its destination, be read, responded to and then the mailing time again.  

After checking the mailbox several times, finally it arrives! How exciting it was to get the letter and sit down to read it.  

How communication has changed! A response can be received within seconds if the recipient reads the e-mail or text right away. How impatient we are if we have to wait a day or two for a response. As if texting is not enough of a shortcut, we have our abbreviations, which  is a whole new language to learn since many texters  assume you’ve taken the abbreviation classes. (TTYL; LMAO; K, for ok, but isn’t that already abbreviated from Okay??; TLTR – too long to read … what??)

Mobile Phones:

A scenario from the past:

You made plans to meet a friend or business associate. More than likely, a time and place was scheduled while talking on the phone. You arrived at the meeting place, but they are not there. You think maybe they’re running late, so you wait another half hour. At this point, you’re wondering if there was a misunderstanding about the time or place, or if there was an accident. At some point, you realize the meeting is not going to happen and wait until you can contact them, either at home or the office. I can remember this frustrating and disappointing scenario happening more than a few times in my lifetime. Of course, these days you would either call or text and say where the heck are you??

1985: The first cell phone, which is nothing like the cell phones we have today, was released in approximately 1985.  

There were many different mobile phones, but up until the year 2000 they were not able to function with the internet.  

2000: Nokia created an internet-enabled cell phone called the Communicator, which was before its time.  It had a full keyboard and could be used as a web browser and e-mail support. However, it was large and bulky so not convenient to carry around.  

Sharp created the “first commercially available camera phone,” but it was only sold in Japan and the camera was not very good.  

Nokia then came up with the 3310. It had a long-lasting battery and was light and pocket-sized.

2003: Then came the Nokia 1100.  

The Nokia 3310 and 1100 are apparently two of the best-selling mobile phones of all time.

2003: The Blackberry 6210 was launched. This was widely used by businesses for their employees, who used it for e-mail, web browsing and the famed Blackberry Messenger.

2007: Skipping ahead a bit, it was announced on or about January 9, 2007, that the iPhone would be released in the United States on June 29, 2007.  This changed from the previous mobile phone designs by featuring few physical buttons and a touch screen.

2008: The first Android Smartphone, the HTC Dream, had a touch screen, internet access and a QWERTY keyboard.

Since that time, smartphones have become very accessible and popular. Aside from being a phone, they give us constant access to the internet, GPS, e-mail, a camera and of course texting.  

Texting is a really great way to communicate since you can send a quick message to someone and hopefully get an immediate response. You can send a message to multiple people and get responses from each of them. The problem is when someone includes you in a text with a large group of people and the texting is never ending.  

Research:

What about when a student had a project requiring research?

Unless you were one of the lucky families who invested in a set of encyclopedias, off you went to the library to do your homework project. “Reference books” were not  loanable. A set of encyclopedias could be purchased, possibly from a door-to-door salesman or ordered by mail. They cost quite a bit of money for a family since many families had only one salary to live on. 

Then came the internet and e-mail.

The World Wide Web became available to the public in approximately April 1993.

Shortly thereafter, internet browsers made e-mail widely available to the public, and we were able to send and receive e-mails consecutively. We were also able to meet and communicate with people in chat rooms.  Not to mention social media. … So, yes, especially the younger people who never knew what it was like before take so much for granted.