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ArishMell · 70-79, M
What's just occurred to me is what lies behind that very wooly, largely meaningless word technology, and its consequences for social connections.
The first connective "technology" other than what Nature provideth - like speech - could be said to be the inventions of writing, in various cultures and languages, in the last few millennia BCE.
That allowed messages to be carried, facilitated trade, brought books. All connecting people.
In Mediaeval times, William Caxton is credited with the first printing-press. Not so long later, Gutenberg advanced that by developing moveable type - greatly increasing the flexibility anfd efficiency of printing. True, most people were laregely illiterate evebn in their own languages, and most official and religious documents were in Latin, but it was still greatly increasing connections.
It also started the growth of what might be called public communications hence connections - of novels, poetry, drama, music.
The "technology" of music advanced - new and better instruments, more music printed. One very important result was the development of chamber and other small-scale works so people could gather to share music and dancing at amateur as well as professional level.
The 18C brought Science and its brother discpline, Engineering - not only eventually better printing presses but much faster physical communications, by better roads, the canals then the railways and steam-ships.
Late 19C: the Telegraph (Morse messages sent in a sort of binary form, as electrical short and long impulses).
Next, early 20C - voice telephony; and ever faster, more extensive physical transport pof goods and people. The railways had already started the popular tourist trade hitherto a preserve of those with the time and money to travel for weeks and months at a time.
Huge technical developments in printing books, newspapers and magazines.
Radio, first telegraphically by Morse then voice; and its visual extension, television - albeit like books, one-way. Major connective communications of information, education and entertainment.
The telephone - look at the very word! It says as it means, voice-communication between individuals at far distances.
We'd finally arrived at "technology" allowing immediate, two-way personal connections for anyone, at distance.
'
Then came the Internet.....
The computer in its various forms and its connection systems are all brilliant Engineering, but still as much "technology" for communicating and connecting people as the early writing and Caxton's press, even if vastly different physically.
Then came so-called "social media"....
Are they - the "media" - really as "social" as said?
Irrespective of how the engineering may develop, are social-media the zenith of communications and connections between people?
If we think so so, sometimes we ought remember the real meaning and implication of zenith....
The first connective "technology" other than what Nature provideth - like speech - could be said to be the inventions of writing, in various cultures and languages, in the last few millennia BCE.
That allowed messages to be carried, facilitated trade, brought books. All connecting people.
In Mediaeval times, William Caxton is credited with the first printing-press. Not so long later, Gutenberg advanced that by developing moveable type - greatly increasing the flexibility anfd efficiency of printing. True, most people were laregely illiterate evebn in their own languages, and most official and religious documents were in Latin, but it was still greatly increasing connections.
It also started the growth of what might be called public communications hence connections - of novels, poetry, drama, music.
The "technology" of music advanced - new and better instruments, more music printed. One very important result was the development of chamber and other small-scale works so people could gather to share music and dancing at amateur as well as professional level.
The 18C brought Science and its brother discpline, Engineering - not only eventually better printing presses but much faster physical communications, by better roads, the canals then the railways and steam-ships.
Late 19C: the Telegraph (Morse messages sent in a sort of binary form, as electrical short and long impulses).
Next, early 20C - voice telephony; and ever faster, more extensive physical transport pof goods and people. The railways had already started the popular tourist trade hitherto a preserve of those with the time and money to travel for weeks and months at a time.
Huge technical developments in printing books, newspapers and magazines.
Radio, first telegraphically by Morse then voice; and its visual extension, television - albeit like books, one-way. Major connective communications of information, education and entertainment.
The telephone - look at the very word! It says as it means, voice-communication between individuals at far distances.
We'd finally arrived at "technology" allowing immediate, two-way personal connections for anyone, at distance.
'
Then came the Internet.....
The computer in its various forms and its connection systems are all brilliant Engineering, but still as much "technology" for communicating and connecting people as the early writing and Caxton's press, even if vastly different physically.
Then came so-called "social media"....
Are they - the "media" - really as "social" as said?
Irrespective of how the engineering may develop, are social-media the zenith of communications and connections between people?
If we think so so, sometimes we ought remember the real meaning and implication of zenith....