I’m not sure how many young people could tell you what a landline telephone is. If you stop to think about it, there’s been a lot of changes in our communications “tools” – especially the telephone.
When my family first moved to Central Minnesota, home phones were attached to a wall where wires made talking to others possible. In the very early years of our home phone, our home and others shared phone lines – they were called party lines, and were the least expensive form of communications between one home phone and others. There was an option for “private lines” that cost more per month, but you didn’t need to check to see if someone else was on the phone using the phone line – you could just pick up and dial the number you wanted to call.
Before too long, phones became more portable, but you couldn’t roam all around your house because your phone had to be able to “find” the base, but you weren’t restricted to one small area in your home.
Fast forward to our current-day cellular phones, and it’s hard to believe the difference from phones that can go nearly anywhere and connect to any other phone through cell towers. There’s no comparison to the early-day phones that were used to make phone calls, and our current-day phones that are literally portable computers we use to communicate. We also use them to do research, or locate a business, or any address we want, using Google Maps or other mapping software. Our cell phones have become so important to our everyday lives that if you left your phone at home, you’d feel lost.
Computers have become so powerful and important in our lives that we use them for everything. There isn’t much in our modern-day lives that isn’t controlled by a computer.
The use of computers has become so important that criminals are figuring out ways to hold companies hostage by hacking into their computer systems and halting production or stealing money from accounts.
I watched a podcast the other day that warned watchers about criminals scheming to disrupt our everyday lives with actions that could shut down power grids, or airports, or train stations, and even our emergency communications (9-1-1) system. There was a warning that the criminals are conducting small tests by shutting down escalators in certain stores (just one of several incidents given) as a test to see how authorities might react.
As I watched, I felt the podcast might be reaching pretty far into a conspiracy theory, but then I realized, with the power of today’s computers, it might be possible. Not that there’s anything I could do about it, so I’ll just keep on with my daily life and hope those with more ability to stop these actions will do what they need to do to keep things normal.
We’ve become very attached to computers, and they do run our lives in many ways, but I know after carrying our portable computer (cell phone) around everywhere I go, there’s little chance any of us could go back to those phones attached to our home’s walls.
Technology is truly amazing, and it’s incredible how much it has changed our lives.
Have A Good Week!
