APPT 6114 - Societal Context: August 2013

Good day! J

Museum of Transport & Technology (MOTAT, 2013)

For our Societal Context, 1^st Module, we we’re asked to visit The Museum of Transport & Technology (MOTAT). Thanks to Ms. Rashika and also Unitec we we’re allow free entrance to the premises. There we we’re given ample time to explore the entire MOTAT and also had to choose one technology to talk about. In our 1^st Module, we we’re given the task to choose a piece of technology, elaborate the history of the technology and what is the impact of the technology to our society today. After going through the entire MOTAT, seeing all the technology available and also gathered new and useful information, I have decided to choose the telephone as my piece of technology for my 1^st Module. Below is the end product of my 1^st Module explaining how did the telephone came about and also the impacts of the telephone towards today’s society. Hope you enjoy it! J

The Telephone

The History Of Telephone

Life Before The Telephone

A Courier Bird (Mastertel, 2010)

It has always been a natural phenomenon for humans to have the needs to deliver information over vast distances even during the ancient times. The need and the idea of the telephone were already in the air ever since humans needed to communicate with one another. During different periods of time in history, there were several different ways of communications (Mastertel, 2010):-

Couriers
Drums
Secret Signs
Fire
Smoke

The Telegraph

The Telegraph (MOTAT, 2013)

For the very first time, man was able to communicate over a vast distance with one another thanks to the telegraph. The telegraph was the first form of communication that could be delivered from a vast distance before the telephone. During the past, information took hours, days sometimes even months to be delivered and by the time it reaches its destination, the information is most likely irrelevant. However, with the creation of the telegraph, information was delivered instantaneously and at the same time, complex information was able to be transmitted farther and farther until it was able to connect with the people around the world by just pressing a couple of buttons due to the increasing efficiency of the telegraph (Shaun Antonio, n.d.).

The Beginning

Alexander Graham Bell & Elisha Gray (Chris Barker, 2012)

In the 1870’s, two well- recognized inventors both individually designed a device that enables sound to be transmitted along electrical cables. Those inventors went by the name Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray. Both of Alexander Graham Bell’s and Elisha Gray’s inventions were registered at the patent office within hour of each other. From there, a legal battle between the two inventors over the invention of the telephone broke, which Alexander Graham Bell successively won (Jason Morris, n.d.).

The telephone and the telegraph are both very similar devices in concept. The success of the telephone was all because of Alexander Graham Bell’s efforts to improve the telegraph. For about 30 years the telegraph had been the main form of communication system before Alexander Graham Bell began with his experiments. The main issue with the telegraph was that Morse code was being used and delivering and receiving messages was limited to only one message at a time (Jason Morris, n.d.).

Due to Alexander Graham Bell’s good understanding towards the nature of music and sound, the inventor was able to identify the possibilities of transmitting several messages through the same wire at the same time. However, Alexander Graham Bell’s idea was not new, other inventors before him had envisioned a multiple telegraph. In result, Alexander Graham Bell came up with his own invention, the “Harmonic Telegraph” which based on the principal that musical notes was able to be delivered instantaneously down the same wire, if those notes differed in pitch (Jason Morris, n.d.).

Gardiner Green Hubbard (Wikipedia, 2013)

During the latter part of 1874, Alexander Graham Bell’s experiments had progressed tremendously that he informed his close family members about the possibilities of a multiple telegraph. Gardiner Green Hubbard, Alexander’s Graham Bell’s future father-in-law, saw this as an opportunity to break the monopoly exerted by the Western Union Telegraph Company and therefore funded Alexander Graham Bell to continue his experiment to develop the multiple telegraph. However, Gardiner Green Hubbard did not know that Alexander Graham Bell and his accomplice Thomas Watson, a young ad brilliant electrician, had another idea that they developed during the summer. The idea was to produce a device that is able to transmit the human voice electrically (Jason Morris, n.d.).

The Telephone Was Created

Joseph Henry (Wikipedia, 2013)

During March 1875, Alexander Graham Bell met with a man called Joseph Henry, the respected director of the Smithsonian Institution, without the knowledge of Gardiner Green Hubbard. Joseph Henry took interest in Alexander Graham Bell’s ideas and offered him words of encouragement. Both Alexander Graham Bell and his accomplice, Thomas Watson, were encouraged by Joseph Henry’s words and continued their experiments with even greater determination and enthusiasm (Jason Morris, n.d.).

By June 1875, both Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson realized that their dreams of producing a device that enables to transmit a speech electrically would soon be within their grasp. The combine efforts of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson had proven that different tones would vary the strength of an electric current in a wire (Jason Morris, n.d.).

The only thing left to do was to create two things that are needed to make Alexander Graham Bell’s dream into a reality. A device with a suitable membrane that is capable of turning those tones into varying electronic currents and to create a receiver to reproduce the variations and turn those variations into audible format at the other end (Jason Morris, n.d.).

Thomas Watson (Wikipedia, 2013)

March 10^th 1876, Alexander Graham Bell’s most memorable words to Thomas Watson, who was in another room during that time, through his new creation were “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to speak to you”. On this very date Alexander Graham Bell finally realize the success and communications potential of his new device, the telephone. The promises of being able to talk down an electrical wire overshadowed those modified telegraph systems, which was basically based on just dashes and dots (Jason Morris, n.d.).

The Telephone Today

Telephones of the 21^st Century (Cassie Slane, 2013)

In today’s modern 21^st century, the telephone has been replaced by cell phones, like the IPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Nokia and many more brands, which do not require wires like how the old phones use to have. Now signals carried by systems that highly depend on the science of physics are used instead of wires. These signals are able to travel through thin air. Most people in the 21^st century today do not even have land-line telephone anymore, even if they do, they hardly use them because most of the people today are highly dependent on their cell phones (DePaul University, 2005).

This device has changed the communication world vastly and even left an impact on how people in today’s world are living. It can connect people via voice, text, videos and many more. Cell phones today can even enable the user to stream the World Wide Web without needing a computer. This makes users able to stream videos, read e-newspapers, download music and more. These are some of the latest innovations in today’s 21^st century communication world. However, it does not end there. The telephones are still changing even as we speak to become even more sophisticated, futuristic and more (DePaul University, 2005).

Societal Impacts Of The Telephone

From my point of view, the telephone has left both positive and negative impacts towards today’s society. However, today’s society likes to think otherwise. There are some who thinks that the telephone has brought a positive impact towards today’s society. While others think that it has brought nothing but negative influences towards today’s society. Let’s take a look on what are the positives and what are the negatives about the telephone towards today’s society.

The Positives

More Information

Information (Deb McLean, 2011)

Before the telephone was ever created by Alexander Graham Bell, people gathered information from newspapers and books. Those were the only available source of information during those days. Furthermore, people during that time also had to rely on other people’s travel patterns and memories to gather information. However, since the creation of the telephone, people are able to find out about almost anything at any given moment by just picking up the telephone and dialing up a number. If people needed help finding a telephone number, they could dial up the operator on the other line to help them connect the call and put them through (G. Schoelles, 2001).

Emergency Services

Emergency Services (Hannay Associates Ltd., 2012)

The very first telephone call was made by Alexander Graham Bell himself when he called his assistant Thomas Watson for help. In the year 1937, Britain created a public emergency system where the people in Britain could dial 9-9-9 for help or emergencies. New Zealand also introduced the same system during 1958 where the people needed to dial 1-1-1 whenever help is needed. In America, the number 9-1-1 was decided to be used as the public emergency system and this was decided by AT&T during the year 1968 and the following number went nationwide during the year 1973. Now, the Enhanced Emergency System directs all call to a trained professional who will provide the people with proper help and information needed during that critical moment (telephoneart.com, 2000).

Connecting With More People

Connecting People (WBA, 2013)

Telephone service might not help to save money for the household. However, the telephone allows us to accomplish many things by saving time, labor and more. The telephone can do a lot of wonders like for example it is always on duty, shops in all weather, corrects mistakes and hastens deliveries. If that is not enough, it save letter writing, orders the dinner, invites the guests, reserves the tickets and also calls the carriage. There’s more, it helps to make appointments, changes the time, cancels them and also renewing them altogether. Not only that, it helps to invite friends over, ask them to stay away or hurry without the burden of going to their house to deliver the message and it enables them to the same in return (Fischer, 1992).

The Negatives

No Privacy

No Privacy (Privacy Online News, 2013)

When the telephone first became accessible to the public, many people were concerned. The people were afraid that other people were able to listen in to their conversations. Sadly, this actually happened during the time where one household shared a line with another household, this is what they use to call the party line. Adding on, some operators last time used to listened in on other peoples conversations because they were just simply too free and nosey. Telephones also allowed news to be spread quicker, but sometimes the news just turn out to be gossips (Pierce, 1990).

Environmental & Health Concerns

Environmental & Health Concerns (Azienda Agricola La Torricella, 2013)

In today’s world, cell phone users have been warned about the amount of microwaves going through their heads might be damaging the nerves inside the head. Telephone poles with hundreds of wires hanging from them became a normal sight to see in large cities and they were not very pleasant to look at. Telephone companies and governments were always fighting about where the cables should be placed. Cities wanted the telephone lines to be out of sight; hence they came up with the idea of burying the cables beneath the street. However, they did not want the streets to be damaged. On the other hand, telephone companies did not want to bury the telephone lines because repairing them would be easier if the lines were on a pole. Furthermore, many old telephones were buried deep beneath wells, but some of the metals that existed in these telephones leaked out into the water supply, thus poisoning the clean waters (Pierce, 1990).

Complicating Life

Complicating Life (Ike Amadi, 2012)

The telephone has also made life more complicated. It used to be that people could just pick up the telephone, make a call and be connected. However, now the telephone works slightly different from how it used to. Users might just get a telephone system that requires the user to press several numbers just to get to an extension, which requires more number to be pressed just to get to another department, which still requires the user to press more numbers just to get to a person which the user doesn’t even know whether the person is there or not. In short, a user can get lost in a telephone system hell (D. Schoelles, 2001).

Telephones nowadays do even more things than just calling. Users need to know how to program phone numbers into the address book in the telephone, how to work the games, how to dial up the internet, how to keep your calendar and it just keeps on going. Very convenient indeed but at the same time it might be confusing for some people. The telephone allows the people of today to multi-task. For example, a person can eat their lunch, make a telephone call, type an e-mail and carry on a meeting all at the same time. This means that the amount of work require for a person to do will increase drastically and many people just burned out by how much they need to do and know just to keep up. This is especially true for the people who were born before the invention of many telephone off-shoots like facsimile machines, teletype machines, cell phones, computer systems and more. Yes, all of these technology helps people to save time, but also makes life difficult due to special skills needed to be learned just to use the equipment (D. Schoelles, 2001).

Reference

Mastertel. (2010). Telegraph. Retrieved from http://telmuseum.ru/en/history/telegraph.htm
Mastertel. (2010). Life before the telegraph and the telephone. Retrieved from http://telmuseum.ru/en/history/phone.htm
Morris, J. (n.d.). The Telephone - A Brief History. Retrieved from http://www.nationalitpa.com/history-of-the-telephone.html
G. Schoelles, Fischer, D. Schoelles (2001). SOCIAL REACTION. Retrieved from http://www.schoelles.com/Telephone/telsocial.htm
DePaul University. (2005). Today’s Telephone. Retrieved from http://teacher.depaul.edu/Documents/TodaysTelephonenonfiction7thgrade.pdf
Antonio, S. (n.d.). The History of Communication Technology Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.personal.psu.edu/jtk187/art2/telegraph.htm

Appendix

For this area of the blog I’ve decided to place all the pictures that I’ve taken during my trip to The Museum of Transport and Technology. Hope you find the pictures interesting and enjoy! J