In preparation for Parents’ Weekend, we have asked our staff writers’ parents to submit blog posts to The Quad. Our staff writer Sara Arnold’s (COM ’14) father wrote this post for us about how, in less than a generation, communication has come to mean instantaneous, real-time exchanges.
So, I am traveling to Sweden for a brief vacation. While on a stopover at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, I take a few minutes to check email and, of course, Facebook. Greeting me on Facebook is a request from my daughter to write 300-500 words for The Quad for Parents’ Weekend. Not exactly what I was thinking about doing while on vacation, especially since I am traveling only with my iPad, not the best technology for word processing. But then I couldn’t get this idea out of my head: “Wow, communication styles have really changed, and all in a single generation.” Here I am in a foreign airport, wirelessly getting a message in real-time from my daughter over 4000 miles away, using neither telephone nor email, but the web.
What a difference a few years makes—okay, more than a few years—but all within my lifetime, nonetheless. When I was growing up, we had only one rotary dial telephone for my family’s use (extension telephones came later). We barely ever called outside our city, since we were charged expensive long-distance rates. Long distance was something reserved for special occasions, like holidays. We never called Europe; we wrote letters. Communication was anything but instantaneous.
My kids have known computers, email, and the web pretty much their whole life. When we moved to our new house in 2004, we made the conscious decision to go off the telephone grid. For the last seven years, all my daughter has known is the freedom brought by cellular technology: you can pretty much call or text anyone in the US for a flat fee, which is equal to or less than what I used to pay for a landline and long distance. Combine the cellular networks with a smartphone and a wireless network, and you can pretty much call or even video chat with anyone in the world for pennies. Add in social media and, like I said above, you are connected to anyone, anywhere, and in real-time.
We truly saw the power of these new modes of communication with the Arab Spring that helped topple governments in Egypt and Tunisia and led to civil war in Libya. Without the real-time communication offered by Twitter, texting, and instant messaging, these groups would have never been able to organize let alone create the “youthquake” they did. Try doing that with a rotary telephone.
Daughter’s note: I am indeed Facebook friends with both my parents, and it is glorious. Sometimes my dad uses emoticons. Horrifying, but mostly hilarious. My favorite part of this post: “Not exactly what I was thinking about doing while on vacation, especially since I am traveling only with my iPad.” Such a hard life, Dad.
