Prev
Next

Society has gone to the dogs because of technology

Andrew Ramadge

by Andrew Ramadge

02 Nov 12:30pm

Must Reads

Eurovision can’t drown out the human rights abuses - this is a caption

Eurovision can’t drown out the human rights abuses

16

Revenge. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than this - this is a caption

Revenge. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than this

51

Friday dilemma: can school bullies grow out of it? - this is a caption

Friday dilemma: can school bullies grow out of it?

123

Filed under: Communications, Social Media, Society, Technology, Telephone

44 comments

Technology is changing the way we communicate with each other – and not for the better. Gone are the days when “catching up” with friends required that you be in the same room, or even the same city.

This confounded contraption is the root of all society's ills…

Nowadays many of our closest relationships are mediated by machines, and it’s taking a toll on what was once considered civilised society. We are forgetting how to speak to one another face-to-face. We are switched-on, but we’re getting more and more disconnected from our true selves.

There is one product more than any other that has led to this worrying state of affairs.

It is responsible for sexualising young women and degrading the way that we address one another. It has lowered the standards of humanity in general.

I am speaking, of course, of the telephone.

Just the other century our most prominent newspapers were filled with reports of the malice, mayhem and mischief spurred by this new invention.

I have attached an assortment of these reports below to convince you too of the grave danger the telephone represents to our way of life.

Irresponsible youth

MARRIED BY TELEPHONE - Two Operators in Indiana Legally United in Playing a Joke

Minnie Worley, age 22, Telephone Exchange operator at South Bend, and Frank Middleton, age 25, in a like position at Michigan City, became acquainted over the wires during their night watches. Finally Middleton proposed in fun that they get married by telephone, and Minnie consented. A Michigan City Justice was called in and performed the legal ceremony, but without the necessary State license.

This occurred last week, and passed off as a joke. Now eminent legal counsel pronounce the marriage legal and binding, and say Justice Dibble is liable to imprisonment for performing the ceremony without the necessary license.

The groom will go to South Bend to see his bride, and divorce proceedings will probably be instituted unless they agree to live together.

The Philadelphia Record, Philadelphia, February 21 1890

Identity theft

MISUSE OF A TELEPHONE

A case of alleged misuse of a telephone occupied the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Crabtree and Sons sued S. Luke and Co., Limited, for $4 as damages for having falsely represented to Charles Lomax that plaintiffs were speaking to him through the telephone…

Evidence was given by three witnesses that on ringing up Luke and Co.‘s, and asking if it was Crabtree and Sons (both firms are iron-founders), an answer came in the affirmative. The defence was a general denial, although it was admitted that an office boy, for a prank, had once in reply to a query “Is that Crabtree and Sons” replied “Yes.”

The Star, Christchurch, November 25 1895

Increase in rudeness

THE TELEPHONE AS A REVEALER OF CHARACTER

You know the process of calling at a public telephone? At least two or three people ask if ‘this is number So-and-so?’ before you can ask for your party by name. The lady was rasped by the time I got there, and when I asked, first for the number, then for Mrs. B, herself answered ‘Yes it is,’ with the acid emphasis of extreme impatience. I gave my name, and the instantaneous change of tone from acerbity to sweetness was amusing in the extreme.

I’ve seen that from the other end of the phone so often, and it is very funny. Most women – women who are not in any business of profession – seem somehow to cherish a secret distrust of the little wooden box, and answer a ring with an air of armed defense. From their tone when they first take the receiver you would suppose the very ringing of the bell was an insult, and that they expected other insults to follow.

The New York Times, New York, November 12 1905

Degradation of language

PHONES ARE TONING THE VOICE

Is the telephone changing the character of the American voice? An eminent teacher of elocution in the east declares that such is the case. He goes on to state that the different pitch of tone required, the ability to gauge the voice so that the uttered words shall carry distinctly, the clear enunciation, and the use of the chest tones all tend to soften and broaden the nasality of tone inherited from our Puritan ancestors.

Deseret Evenings News, Salt Lake City, July 14 1906

Sexualisation of women

THE PASSING OF THE TELEPHONE GIRL

It has been said that the telephone has been the greatest productive agent of “cuss words” ever known, and this can well be understood when one considers the conditions that existed prior to the advent of the telephone girl. The “hello” girl is one of the most interesting factors in American life.

Aside from her prosaic duties as an operator, she has been the central figure in some of the most stirring romances of recent years, outdoing the wildest dreams of a Laura Jean Libbey. From the commonplace surroundings of a telephone central she has gone to a palace as its mistress.

The New York Times, New York, March 4 1906

Most commented

430Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself
390There's no one Thomson won't burn to save his skin
336Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer
313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking
265Who murdered the Arts degree?
246A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing...
231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...
231South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.

44 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • stephen says:

      12:02pm | 02/11/10

      I read somewhere that females hear differently than males ; it supposed to be a matter of time to seduce a woman over the phone by using calming inflexions (or maybe that’s just crooning).
      I tried once, as a gag, ringing a gal up in the same room, and it really don’t work cause sooner or later yer gotta either stand up, turn around or take yer hat off.
      (Bit like drivin around in a fancy top-end sports car…sooner or later, yer gotta get out of the thing.)

      Reply

    • Steve says:

      08:23am | 03/11/10

      with the way you write i would stick to talking on telephones Stephen

    • stephen says:

      11:50am | 03/11/10

      i tried dat but the bloody things never talked back ter me.
      (Well they did actually but yer gotta put money in’m first)

    • Chris says:

      12:15pm | 02/11/10

      Yes, lets look at how bad the telephone has been for our society. Instant communication with loved ones and friends. A medium for the first data communications which led to the rise of the internet. Inspiration for mobile phones which allow unprecedented access to information wherever you are.

      But yes.. Lets look at the negative. Better yet, disconnect yourself and go and become a hermit in the mountains somewhere?

      Reply

    • FFS says:

      12:54pm | 02/11/10

      Chris, I think this article was just supposed to be a bit of fun. Gee you technophiles get very sensitive whenever someone has a bit of a laugh about Apple or Androids or whatever.

    • Reg says:

      01:37pm | 02/11/10

      Gee you guys missed all the fun. Telephone ladies could be some of the most vicious voices you’d encounter in one lifetime.
      “Number please.” “What did you the money in for?”  “Just don’t do anything ‘til I tell yuh.”  “How do you expect me to find the number if you don’t give me the full address?” “What’s his second initial?”  burrrrrrr.

      Second only to the terror of visiting the post-office counter. You might like to know that Irish Post-Offices are STILL a mine-field of the Soup-Nazi variety.

    • ben says:

      02:16pm | 02/11/10

      The instant part of the communication takes away the importance of patience…people these days do not have patience to wait for some one else’s time, the instant gives people the oppotunitie to get a answer to any question at any possible time of the day from anyone in the world. what patience is taught if you can not possible teach someone to wait on your time!

    • Joan says:

      04:06pm | 02/11/10

      Tele- marketers drive me nuts…. they have replaced the ye old door to door salesman… A friend or family member by phone or net are as welcome as they would be if they knocked on my door .

    • Reg says:

      07:43pm | 02/11/10

      I think I might have just insulted my dentist on the phone by telling him that what-ever he was selling I didn’t want any. smile

    • acotrel says:

      07:01am | 03/11/10

      My wife is 250Km away in Melbourne looking after her aged mother, coming home only at weekends.  I ring her each morning and night - that’s our social life!  When she leaves on Sunday afternoon I experience grief, worse than when my mother died. Thank you Alexander Graham Bell,( or was it Thomas Edison)?

    • Kordez says:

      12:16pm | 02/11/10

      Imagine what is waiting to be discovered in another century with the aid of the internet. We are already seeing amazing stuff. For instance, anyone with a Playstation 3 and an internet connection can leave their console on and donate it’s CPU’s time to non profitable organisations breaking down the human genome and curing disease.

      Reply

    • Yakenjokin says:

      05:03pm | 02/11/10

      Hey Kordez! I thought that also included spare cpu time on pc as well!
      Either way it’s a good use of otherwise wasted power and you could be part of an amazing discovery.

    • acotrel says:

      07:06am | 03/11/10

      When telemarketer rings me and ask for the business owner, I always say ‘hold on and I’ll get him for you’.  Then I put the earpiece down on the table, and go back to eating my dinner. If they’re obviously Indian I often tell them the wage rates for their job in Australia.  You cannot cheat an Indian.  Let them have labour problems in India while they’re enjoying our jobs!

    • Jordan Rastrick says:

      12:35pm | 02/11/10

      Lol, I like it.

      A similar example, from a quite prominent article some time ago called “Is Google Making us Stupid?” It contained some quotes from a famous author about the effects of new information processing technology on young minds that I thought were worth paying considerably more attention to:

      “Cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.” 
      “Receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,”
      “Be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.”
      “Be filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.”

      The author as it happens wasn’t citing some more authoritative source about the negative effects of the internet; he was admitting that reflexive skepticism of new technologies needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The quotes are in fact from none other than Plato, who was concerned about how WRITING was going to destroy the intellects of 5th century B.C. Greek society.

      I think that says it all, really.

      Reply

    • Billit says:

      12:35pm | 02/11/10

      Ummm..Chris I think you have missed the sarcastic nature of the piece. The reports of from the turn of last century and today would society would even blink at any of the reports. I found them rather good to read..imagine a woman answering the phone in an acidic voice and realising who the caller is it turns to sweetness..the marvels technology brings. I just call my wife names to get that sort of reaction.

      Reply

    • mark says:

      12:43pm | 02/11/10

      Oh, I’m sorry I thought the answer was modern, left wing magistrates,

      Reply

    • Chris says:

      12:49pm | 02/11/10

      Hello Billit, My comment was tongue in cheek! Hard to convey these emotions over the interwebs!

      Reply

    • Billit says:

      01:53pm | 02/11/10

      Chris your acknowledgment is accepted. Yes it is hard to convey these things over the net.

    • Jules says:

      02:35pm | 02/11/10

      Actually, it isn’t difficult to convey emotions in text at all.  There was nothing in your comment suggesting tongue in cheek, none of the conveyances used to depict the tone of a message in this internet age.  Not even a lone emoticon, smiling there in futile desperation that people would hopefully not take your posting in the way you intended

    • Reg says:

      07:12pm | 02/11/10

      I think the challenge is to convey opposite emotions in purely written word without any emoticons. Don’t you?

      Sarcasm is deception in disguise that leaves the reader either neutral or annoyed at the writer’s intentions. Americans annoy Australians by employing active voice while Australian are supposed to be more submissive in their choice of words. I am led to suppose this is why Australians employ sarcasm so often. It’s certainly not active voice and the inversion appears to represent an embarrassment at being so forward as to say what they really mean. Interesting.

    • ibast says:

      12:56pm | 02/11/10

      I am becoming increasingly of the opinion that TV has led to a general degradation of our global intellect and well being.  I’m quite serious.  Instead of reading to each other, stimulating our brains with a book, learning a musical instrument, going out and socializing or playing, we just sit in front of the TV, by default, and have ever declining drivel fed to us.

      Reply

    • Kath says:

      01:12pm | 02/11/10

      I agree.  At least the telephone (mobile or internet or landline) promotes communication…  How often do you find yourself anoyed that the phone is ringing when you are watching TV - when in fact you are not watching anything special - just mindlessly staring at the pretty colours flicker in front of you..  Bring on a good converation with loved ones any day..

    • Reg says:

      01:25pm | 02/11/10

      I meet some of the most interesting people ever, waiting in the blood-collection queues.  Unfortunately we never get to finish our conversations. Once you start them talking the most interesting parts of their lives pour forth. South Africans don’t want to talk until they realise the opportunity they’ve missed when you start conversing with others. Then they won’t leave. Poor bastards.

    • Markus says:

      01:29pm | 02/11/10

      Those who stimulated their brains by reading or learning an instrument were always in the minority, even prior to the TV.

      Before this, the main options for entertainment were looking after the kids 24/7 if a woman, or drinking at the pub all hours of the night if a man.

      Menzies decided that the second option was unacceptable, that men should be at home with their families, so restricted operating hours.
      Maybe that is why divorce rates have skyrocketed - all this being forced to be with your wife/family.

    • marley says:

      03:24pm | 02/11/10

      I think we have a rather idealized view of the pre-television era.  Did people really sit around reading literature, or did they read comics (for the kids) and potboilers or pulp magazines?  Did they actually learn an instrument or go to concerts, or did they listen to popular music on the radio?  How are the options on TV (on the one hand, reasonable drama, opera, documentaries and analytical news programs, and on the other, commercial tripe, Australian Idol, ACA and TT, and “once over lightly ” news, all that different from the mix of entertainment, quality and tabloid press, or high-brow/low-brow reading material available 50 years ago?

      There will always be people who are educated, literate and aware, and there will always be those who are less so.  It has very little to do with the medium by which education, literacy and awareness are communicated.

    • Reg says:

      03:46pm | 02/11/10

      You’re right marley. Pre-television if you got on your bike early enough to go to school in the morning, you’d pass at least a half-dozen houses with kids doing their morning 30 minutes at piano practice. Not any more. Closest it goes now, ...although to be honest I’m off bikes since then, you’ll hear a sax,a trombone or a trumpet about 6pm, when the evening TV news starts. TV has definitely lowered our musical standards. Which reminds me, I must have missed Kylies comments on Dame Joan’s passing.

    • Lee from WA says:

      01:16pm | 02/11/10

      As the writer of Ecclesiastes wrote wisely, “there is nothing new under the sun”

      Changes in technology has always led some to believe that society was going down the gurgler, as opposed to the golden age we’re leaving behind. I’m sure all of us young ‘uns will be saying the same in 50 years time.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      01:18pm | 02/11/10

      Have just listened to all the Melbourne Cup jockeys, I blame horse-racing for making Australian voices squeaky. Remember Lokie Melville?  Computers only cause premature atrification of the vocal folds.

      Reply

    • mickijo says:

      01:25pm | 02/11/10

      I love computers and these new gizmos. My library on IPad is vast and I can carry it so easily where ever I go.I can have an email ‘conversation’ with family thousands of miles away-for free. I just wish I could hang around for a few hundred years to play with all the new toys that are coming. I am beginning to hate television. It had such promise but has been turned, largely, into cheap trash-or trash anyway. Still I suppose you can’t win them all but I wish it didn’t have such a bad effect on young minds. It could be so much better.

      Reply

    • Mike says:

      02:20pm | 02/11/10

      Who invented Tony Abbott? I’d rate him a far more detrimental creation than any piece of technology.

      Reply

    • Smart Fitz says:

      02:29pm | 02/11/10

      Who invented Gillard? She doesn’t care about Australia’s future cause she has no investment in this country’s future.

    • acotrel says:

      07:30am | 03/11/10

      Abbott uses George Pell instead of a telephone to talk to God!

    • Adam says:

      02:40pm | 02/11/10

      Technology should be a medium capable of opening up new technologies, of fuelling aspiration. Instead, it’s used to enable laziness. Used to do less with more rather than more with less.

      I recall the behind the scenes features of older movies and TV shows from the 90s where CGI was just on the cusp of mainstream use and many special effects were still done physically. The emphasis was on the story and the effects were secondary. They were difficult to accomplish and those who worked on them put in tremendous effort, often creating novel solutions.

      Now, CGI work is done with such relative ease, not only is less effort being put into creating unique effects, but increasingly effects are driving mediocre stories.

      The same goes for the telephone. We can now converse whenever we want and keep in touch. Yet, people are saying less and talking less.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      07:07pm | 02/11/10

      Technology is a tool, and nothing more.  It can’t fuel inspiration - it’s not a philosophy - it’s a mechanism.  Ultimately,  creativity still needs the unique human mind to drive it.  I don’t think mankind is any less creative than he was a century ago - I just think technology enables the less creative to get publicity, whereas a century ago they would have been driving spikes into railway ties or doing bookkeeping in longhand with no calculators.

    • Gary D says:

      03:31pm | 02/11/10

      Fire is the worst invention of humans, with fire we found energy to provide comfort. but a single person cannot grow enough trees in their life time to cover the energy they need for comfort, just to provide heat, then there comes all the ways we try to provide energy for comfort living, transport and food storage and it is less then 15% efficent, IE: 85% of the planets resorces are wasted per person on the planet just in comfort energy..

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      04:00pm | 02/11/10

      With respect, on the contrary Gary D. The “cave persons” who first decided to cook their food, rather than gnaw on raw seeds and flesh, provided their stomachs access to literally a world of vitamins and growth. It was the beginning of modern man, oh alright then, and woman to.  So their babies were healthier and more resistent to premature death, well, except from being devoured by the old school.

      The internet is similar. Consume junk and you will not get the benefit..

    • marley says:

      07:15pm | 02/11/10

      How about the wheel?  It’s enabled us to travel, to develop ever more efficient war machines (chariots, tanks), to move across vast stretches of territory, often burning fossil fuel in the process, and to colonize/inhabit places we would never have gotten to otherwise.  And wheels of one sort or the other are involved in most kinds of machines. Without wheels, we wouldn’t have clocks or windmills or assembly lines.  Blame it all on the wheel.  We could be living in Arcadia right now, without it - of course, there wouldn’t be many of us, and we wouldn’t be living too well, but that’s the price you pay for purity.

    • Joan says:

      04:33pm | 02/11/10

      Over the years all the girls at work always say that my husband`s voice via phone is sexy… and I must say it does sound better via phone than in reality. I recall a guy I worked with who related how he was seduced by a woman at the other end… they shared a rapport on daily basis for work purposes via telephone and he finally he got the nerve to ask her out,- a total failure , an excruciating outing,  so relationships via phone or internet with unknowns are not necessarily a success- but then again I know of successful relationships ending in marriage via internet meeting. As they say -horses for courses….

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      08:10pm | 02/11/10

      When I first came to Sydney, I was encouraged to phone a certain member of staff, have a small conversation and later convey my impression. There was no way of missing what they meant. Her conversation was scintillating and pleasant and her tone welcoming, not to say seductive.

      In the flesh she was prematurely desiccated, and very unattractive. Only time in my life I would have welcomed blindness. Since that day I have lost all faith in judging character by the superficiality of appearance.

    • Joe Talcott says:

      09:31pm | 02/11/10

      I loved this.
      New technology has always been a magnate for criticism. Socrates complained about writing. He said (paraphrase) “Kids nowadays! They don’t have to memorise anything, they can just read”.
      But of course we only know this today because Plato wrote it down.

      Reply

    • Andy Otes says:

      08:11am | 03/11/10

      Magnate (!) for criticism??? Love it, Joe. You win the special judges’ prize: a dictionary! Talk about LOL!!!

      Reply

    • Sandy says:

      08:14am | 03/11/10

      Technology is like law and tax.  And many other things.  You can really make it do wonderful things.  Until the social cretins turn up.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      03:45pm | 03/11/10

      But I thought law and taxes were for the good of the people, including and especially for the cretins?  When you write “you,” do you mean for you in particular or for “us?” If it’s supposed to be self-evident then I plead age, blindness and creeping cretinism. What’s your excuse Sandy?

    • Sandy says:

      01:17pm | 08/11/10

      You’re right Reg.  I shouldn’t have been so slack with my word choice.

      We can really make it do wonderful things.  Until the bullies and greedy lazy pigs turn up.

 
Comment

Facebook Recommendations

Read all about it

Punch live

Up to the minute Twitter chatter

ToryShepherd

ToryShepherd 26 May 12 01:27PM

Cheeky beers with morning papers in unexpected sunshine http://t.co/MD7VPRne

Anthony Sharwood

antsharwood 26 May 12 01:27PM

http://t.co/Zq0nGxkf nice pic of Thredbo this morning

Paul Colgan

Colgo 26 May 12 12:52PM

@seamus yeah it's now called Smooth or Soft or Douchey Dad FM or something

Paul Colgan

Colgo 26 May 12 12:44PM

It's a Sydney thing, but 95.3FM... Why? It used to be all Bohemian Rhapsody and Walk this Way; now it's Father to Son and Country Road. Wah.

See all tweets

Recent posts

The latest and greatest

We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project

by Claire Connelly

11

We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project

I’d like to be able to say that sharing the world’s largest radio telescope with South Africa…

Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics

by Laurie Oakes

50

Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics

When North Queensland Liberal MP George Christensen got the idea of launching a new political organisation…

Please enter your password

by Lucy Kippist

28

Please enter your password

Help! I’ve succumbed to a crippling modern illness that can strike at any moment. Symptoms include:…

Nosebleed Section

choice ringside rantings

From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

Michael S says:

"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]

From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone

Change Up! says:

I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]

Light weight

Gentle jabs to the ribs

They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more

243 comments

Newsletter

Read all about it

Sign up to the free daily Punch newsletter

Subscribe to The Punch RSS feed