History and Communications #T

While systems of writing predated the first known coherent texts by decades, or a couple of centuries, it is generally accepted that recorded history had its inception about 4600 years ago.  For the next 4000 years all of mankind's written records were inscribed by hand with chisel, wedge, quill, or pen.  Long-distance communication was accomplished by courier, messages traveling on foot of man or beast.

Then in 1439 or 1440 the printing press made its debut and everything was changed.  Communications proliferated, the masses were eventually inundated with information. In a mere 440 years more there came the development of hot-metal typesetting, the rotary press, off-set printing, and there was no stopping the flow of both fact and opinion.  Another century saw the introduction of digital printing, and the mind reels.

But between the introduction of the rotary press and the digital press the world saw the development of the telegraph, the radio, the introduction of television to the masses.  Kaboom!  Minds blown.  Most literally, for some, this writer included, suspect that no one has been able to think straight ever since.

By the 1980s the personal computer was no longer a dream, but such machines were being introduced to the public, puny as they were in their "computing" power.  But soon enough, too soon, the capacity for whatever the machines are capable of doing expanded exponentially and "every" home saw the need to possess one of them.  Email developed and became the standard of communication, almost instant in its capacity to transmit documents from point A to point B.

So we all adapted to email.  The art of letter writing faded into the mists of history along with cuneiform tablets.  But now the development of technology has accelerated to such a pace that almost before some of us with a set of aging brain cells fail in adaptability to be able to keep up with change as rapidly as it occurs have not time to master one style of communication before another must-have, be-all-and-end-all (before it is replaced day-after-tomorrow with something else) has been dangled before us, adapted by many and shoved down the throats of the rest who wish to "remain connected."

Email?  Forget it.  No one opens his email anymore as his address lies unused in the ether.  I know this because I still attempt to use it, but many tell me, "Oh, I don't look at email anymore."  What do they do?  They "text message," or simply, "text" on their teeny-tiny hand-held devices, one of which would disappear in the palm of my hand, six or eight buttons of which I can cover with the tip of my index finger.

I am being obsoleted out of the world of communication.

I have more, but this has rambled on sufficiently and recorded history no longer has merit, for there is entirely too much of it to absorb, and too little of it which has any redeeming virtue.