Deterioration of Communication

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, IT’S HOW YOU DON’T SAY IT. The advances in technology have made it easy to communicate through so many methods. But with advances, there’s setbacks. Everybody is texting. Nobody is talking. People are spending less face time with friends, and more time on facebook. The beautiful English language is getting butchered more and more everyday. It feels weird to write with a pen and I think I have forgotten how to spell.

Designed by Boris Kostov

Ill b by @ 3 <3
A lot of fights between couples start out with the words, “Who’s this text message from?” It’s always the dumb ass who forgot to delete that last booty call message. This is the kind of crap that will get your ass busted. Be discreet…delete. I’d like to say don’t do it, but let’s be realistic. Hooking up these days has never been easier. Your friend with bennies is even more convenient. That special someone to meet up with after you go home alone is just strokes away. Keystrokes. Less than seven to be exact.

“r u busy?” Booty calls are now booty texts. Tweets are the new press releases. Everyone is officially living in the digital world of communication.

FROM GRUNTS TO GLYPHS
Man has an innate need to communicate. It’s natural. Like the need to eat or breathe. Without communication we’re all just rambling idiots like Helen Keller before her miracle worker. Prehistoric homosapians established dominance and secured a mate through a series of grunts. Simple sounds that served a variety of meanings. They recorded their experiences with drawings on cave walls and boulders. The simple symbols on these paintings evolved into the first alphabet.

Not many people were literate and only few held the power of the written word. At the end of the Dark Ages, the first printing press was introduced. Along with the  advances of movable type, this machine made literature readily available to regular people. Knowledge was no longer exclusive to royalty anymore. More books were printed, and more people learned to read and write. Then suddenly there was a massive explosion of ideas. The beautiful language had evolved as a tool to educate. Since then, we have seen technology move forward at full throttle. It used to be a timely process to send a message. Now look at how far we have come.

RIDE IT. MY PONY.
Back in the day, the Pony Express delivered all the news in the Old West and was manned by riders who knew no fear. Until that fear became losing their jobs as telegraph poles popped up across this vast nation. The telegraph was widely used through the first half of the 20th century and its existing network of poles and wires were invaluable to the telephone companies that would take them over.

RING MY BELL
Telephones had been around since the turn of the 20th Century in the United States, but with only approximately three million users it was not nearly as prevalent as it is these days.For the last 60 years or so, the telephone has been the keystone of any successful business. Through the use of advertising on television, thousands and thousands of businessmen can drive traffic to their switchboards. Don’t believe me? Just ask The Heavy Hitter how many people know his phone number.

PAGE ME
Cellular phones have only gained popularity and widespread use within the last decade or so. But back when the internet was new: pushing  IPO’s, creating millionaires overnight, and promising porn directly to your desktop, Cell phones were still a lavish gizmo for the Rich.

The rest of us were reduced to carrying around little square devices that could only “receive” numerical messages. You may have seen one of these in Grandpa’s attic or at the Smithsonian next to The Fonz’s leather jacket. It’s called a pager.  In fact the pager might have been the first culprit responsible for dumbing down the language.

90*401773*8487*420
Twelve years ago, the L.A. Times’ Joe Mozingo, wrote an interesting piece delving into the world of the pager lexicon. Emerging in the late 1990’s, teenagers had devised a custom language of their own by assigning letters to numbers by their shape and the context in which they were used.

In the numerical message “Go Home Baby 420” each number is shaped like the letter it’s supposed to represent. 9=G, 0=O, etc… the combination of 1-7-7 create an ‘m’ if you look close enough. I’ll leave you to figure out the rest of the message which involves something happening at 4:20.

This was groundbreaking stuff. And it shows how we adapt to new situations that involve communication.  An adaptation of many of these codes and numbers are still used today in texts, IM’s and tweets that we bombard each other with everyday.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? GOOD.
Back in 1947 (the same year as the crash in Roswell for you conspiracy buffs) Bell Labs had a breakthrough in experimenting with hexagonal cells for cellular use, in both the phones and the cell towers that would relay the signals back and forth. Did that famous “weather balloon” have anything to do with our ability to tweet while sitting in the audience of a crappy strip show? mayhaps.

Do you remember when cellphones debuted? The most “portable” phone was wired to a backpack or purse? It made you feel like you were G.I. Joe’s calling in air support. “Breaker, Breaker do you copy?” Then they got a little bit smaller, but were still the size and weight of a loaf of your Grandmother’s banana nut bread. These phones were called “The Brick.”

In those days, a cell phone was associated with money. If you had a phone, it was assumed that you must be rich. The cost of having a cell phone was very expensive so even if you had one, you were normally using it on an emergency only basis.

TEXT ME WHEN YOU GET HERE
Text messaging has become an indispensable tool when trying to find that blind date or TALK to your BFF in a noisy over crowded club.

“where u at?”
“getting a drink. U want somethin’?”
“yes 7&7. Meet u back at the table?”
“K”

And EVERYONE is texting–from Hollywood celebrities to your Mom. Texting is rampant. And the rage these days is Sexting. You knew it would happen eventually. Sex always makes its way into every new invention around.

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY
This leads us to the modern incarnation of the cell phone: Part phone, part pager, part computer, part TV, part video game, part calculator, part clock, part alarm, and with the iPhone, ‘part’ anything you can come up with. GPS, level, card-counter, tour guide, etc. If you can imagine it, there’s an app for it. Better, Faster, Stronger…

That need to communicate has grown one hundred fold with the rise of social networking. Some people would be lost, cut-off and helpless without their MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter. (MyFaceTwits) It’s an addiction to socializing, and since people need their fix in real time, Everything can be fed right to your phone.

Relationships are begun on MySpace, cultured on facebook and broken-up via text message. CU L8R. Dear Johns have been reduced to Dr Jhn and the missing vowels don’t stop the hurt. <sniffle>

THE CONS?
There is no doubt that the advances in technology have made it so convenient to get your message across. So convenient that you really don’t have to talk to anybody anymore. An oxymoron right? With millions of texts going back and forth over networks, I’m sure there is a substantial drop in people having voice conversations. In a way it’s sad.  Remember that friend you had whose laugh was so contaigious that it made you laugh? Well seeing LOL or LMAO has replaced that. Then you have your people who are so passive aggressive that instead of someone saying they are mad at you, they will update their status or mood to read “So over being taken advantage of.”

PHONE CRED
I have friends that don’t even answer their phones. Everybody that you communicate with is now on a credit system. Let me explain. Imagine you are trying to get some friends together for drinks tonight. You want to invite Johnny, Jane, Jack & Jill.

Call Johnny. No answer. Text Johnny. 30 minutes later Johnny texts back, “K. See you 2nite.”

Call Jane. She answers. She says that work is driving her crazy. She says she would love to meet for some much needed cocktails.

Then you call Jill because Jack doesn’t even use his phone for outgoing calls. Jack uses his phone for when Jill calls him only. Jill is the networker in their relationship. No answer. You leave her a voicemail. She texts you back immediately. “Got ur msg. We’ll be there.”

In that scenario everybody has established their phone cred. You already know that Johnny is a texter. He may not get back to you right away but he will get back to you. Jane is a phone call away. When you call her, she answers. Jack doesn’t like to talk, text, or e-mail and Jill would rather text you than talk on the phone. Before there were cell phones, there were land lines. It was very simple: “Here is my number” meant here is my home phone number. If you call me and I don’t answer it probably means I’m out doing something. But if I do answer, let’s talk.

THE POLITICS
It used to be that If you weren’t home when I called, no hard feelings. Then came the answering machine. Now you have people leaving messages, and if you don’t call them back they feel that since there is an audio record of them calling you that you are an asshole for not calling back. Maybe you didn’t answer because you were having some spontaneous sex with your significant other, and as you are about to get your rocks off your mother leaves a message. Sort of a mood killer. The new world of communication includes a side of guilt. From caller I.D. to the number of rings it takes you to answer your phone. You are always on trial.

THE MISUNDERSTANDING
Another setback with the evolution of communication is that words and emoticons can only get you so far. You can’t really translate the tone of a message. “I’m kinda tired” via text sounds like a rejection to hang out. But really, you could just be stating that you are kind of tired. So it leaves plenty of room for misinterpretation. In situations of confrontation it can misleading. A fight between you and your BF or GF can start on the phone and can continue into texting back and forth the entire night. So basically you fought the entire night? And you were out with your friends? Think back to the olden days when accountability was not in question. If a fight started on the phone, you would just leave and that would be the end of it. Go out, have fun with your friends, and enjoy it. But the new world shows you have 21 missed calls and a text that says WTF are you not answering your phone?!!!! There’s no denying or overlooking because it’s all on record.

THE PROS
Where do I stand on the side of this potential fictional argument? As a user of words, I love words but I use all of these annotated and acronymic phrases everyday! I am slowly becoming a MyFaceTwit whore! I freely admit that I check my followers religiously.

Technology is fascinating. 10 years ago I couldn’t update MyFaceTwit while standing in the long ass line at WalMart. “Standing in line at WalMart Cashier is CUTE!” At the end of the day technology is a beautiful thing. Waiting in line or sitting in an airport is much more tolerable today than before. It’s a perfect scenario to kill time. In fact, the only cons of technology can be repaired by you. Don’t be afraid to answer your phone, It’s refreshing to have a conversation. And stop prosecuting people like OJ.  If I missed your call, I’ll call you back. TTYL