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How Technology Affects Communication

So, this video title kind of would seem a little stupid to you, doesn’t it? You’re probably thinking that well, no duh, technology has affected communication. I mean, just look a phone. So, it would seem a little stupid to make a video that is just about how technology affects communication.  But that’s just the thing, all you see is the fact that you’re able to call someone from almost anywhere in the world. So instead of talking about that, we are going to be talking about the entire process.

Lets Begin the Timeline

Thanks to an amazing timeline from Conference Calls Unlimited, we are going to be going all the way back in time to 1800 BC. That is approximately 3821 years ago. At this time, the Chinese were the big nation of the time, and they were using their Great Wall and Smoke signals to get word across to soldiers and to the rest of the nation. These were secret signals with smoke that would warn the soldiers about anything during warfare as there was a lot of war with China at this time. An example of this would be the scene in the Disney movie, Mulan. Where the light the fire in order to warn the rest of China that the “Hun” were attacking. Now if you are wondering how successful these smoke signals were, they were able to be seen from 500 miles away! That’s the distance if you were going to run around a track 2000 times. Just the bottom to the top of California is 560 miles.

The Greek

The next innovation from this was way later in 150 BC from the Greek. They decided to make it so that letters from the Greek language could be put into numbers so that they could be communicated over torch signals to other Greek people.

Newspapers

Not too long after that in 59 BC the first Newspapers were created. As you know, Newspapers are made in order to get, well, the news around, this was one of the first things that started to actually get information around to more people…

Paper

Now I don’t know how this one works but the next innovation would be paper in 100 AD. Paper is super important because you can put practically anything on it, or you can use it for many things, such as paper airplanes…well… I don’t think they had those at that time.

Pens

The next innovation, was in 1000 AD , I can’t believe it took them this long after they had paper, but the next innovation was pens. Fricken Pens. Like, come on, it took humanity 900 years after they made paper, to make pens?!? Anyways, with using lead, aka poison on paper, they were able to make pens so that they could finally write on paper, I can’t even imagine what they would’ve used in those 900 years.

Printings Presses

Now onto the next innovation, clear into 1400 AD. We now have printing presses, meaning that we can mass print newspapers and books and everything, also meaning that a lot of scribes are going to be losing their jobs. Isn’t that just great. However, I do wonder, how were papers made in 59 BC if they didn’t have paper, pens or a printing press…

Telegraph

Finally, to the more, modern of things. We now move to 1844 when we now have the telegraph. We can now send telegraphic messages 40 miles away, but this time, instead of being able to do it 500 miles away and having to convert smoke into numbers and the numbers into letters, we make the distance go clear down to 40 miles, but…. we can use little signals to make words…honestly don’t know if I would consider that better than the 500 miles, but…whatever…its TECHNOLOGY.

Telephone

Bam, next up is the Telephone. Invented in 1848, the telephone is where we start to get even more modern as we are finally able to make audible calls over wires. Except, the only problem is that you couldn’t even understand it until 1876 when the first successful words, “Mr. Watson come here, I want to see you” were said on the first successful telephone call by the inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. However, Alexander wanted the common greeting on the phone to be “Ahoy” but…. Thomas Edison, another really famous inventor, you’ve probably heard of him, decided that he wanted “Hello” to be the word…and nowadays, we just say whatever we want to.

Radio

 The next big invention would be the radio in 1896. And if you even think about saying that the radio isn’t even that big anymore, the Radio industry, just in the United States is as 13.4-billion-dollar industry, seems pretty big to me, anyways, the radio soon became really big because it was able to send signals farther than phone, because phone at the time required wires, so people used radio for a long time. Fun fact, according to our amazing timeline that is provided to us, the most common type of radio actually used crystals as their main components. Radio waves powered the crystal instead of batteries.

Computers

Next, our favorite thing came along, computers. In 1897, computers came along, and they started to really soon become better and better but they wouldn’t go really fast until in 1960’s when text editors finally came along, allowing people like us to be able to program the computers to do the things that they do now.

Recorders

It’s now the 1920s and we are finally recording thing…on records that is. If you didn’t know, Thomas Edison was the one who invented the recorder and the first thing that he recorded, back in 1877, 1920’s is just when recorders got popular, the first thing was Mary Had a Little Lamb…like, come one, he couldn’t have recorded something better? They might not be from the 1920’s but I think it would’ve been awesome if a band like Imagine Dragons or something was the first thing recorded, heck, I would’ve even been ok with Beethoven being the first thing recorded, but Mary Had a Little Lamb? Come on, you can do better than that Thomas.

Optic Fiber (why am I just getting it)

Also, in the 1920’s Optic Fiber was now a thing. In 1920’s Optic Fiber, which is millions of fiber made out of glass, it can send signals for electronics back and forth, such as the internet which would soon come. Fun fact, did you know that Optic Fiber may be able to transfer data at super fast speeds, but because it’s glass, it can’t transport power. Also, did you know that 1 million threads of optic fiber can fit inside a tube of only 1/2” in diameter? Also, how have we had optic fiber since the 1920’s and I am just barely getting Fiber Link internet at my house in 2021? Like, did we just go, well, this is a nice invention, and decided that we just didn’t want to use it until 100 years later?

Television (TV)

Next up, the television, invented in 1927. The television soon became one of the fastest growing and biggest industries in the world, allowing for other industries such as the Film industry to come in and take over our ways of entertainment. Fun fact, the first TVs resolution was just 60 lines. And here we are with our common 4K and some even 8K resolution devices…. seems a bit crazy to me. Also, if the resolution of the human eye equals to 576 megapixels…. what will happen if we make something higher than that?

Cell Phone

Here comes 1946, we now have the first…. cell phone? I mean, if we are being technical, It was the first phone that didn’t need to have wired connection. However, it required a car to power it and it could only work 6 times on a single charge. This was first used by the Swedish police, kind of interesting, at least to me it is.

Video Games

Next up we have one of the favorite forms of passing time, Video games coming along in 1947. Along with a Long-Playing Record in 1948 and…something that we are all sort of grateful for, conference calling in 1956.

Email

Next up, 1971, and we now have Email. Email is one of our biggest forms of contact these days, with companies like Google and used to be Yahoo made the biggest Email companies making a monopoly on Email. Also, fun fact, the first spam email didn’t occur until 1978 when only 383 users received an email about a “new kind of computer” …. nowadays I wish that spam emails only went to 383 users…instead of the millions that they go to now.

Handheldish Cell Phone

Next in 1973 we have the actual official cell phone invented by Marin Cooper… this phone, also known as the Brick, was from none other than the company of Motorola. And honestly, even though they aren’t a huge phone company these days, at least compared to Apple and Samsung, they still make amazing phones. I myself even used a Moto G Stylus until a few weeks ago when I accidently kind of dropped it straight into the road, but just to make it clear, it is not Motorola’s fault that it broke. It was completely my fault.

Internet

Next up, another one of favorite things, the Internet. The internet came around in 1983 allowing computers from all around the world to be able to connect together. With blogs coming in 1997, with Social Networks as well in 1997, and then Webinars in 1998. All of these which are now super common on the internet…just imagine what would happen if the internet was taken away for 1 week from everyone under 21 years old…I honestly don’t think that would end up well.

Smartphones

Next up, smartphones in 2001. At this time, smartphones were being dominated from companies such as Blackberry…we saw how that went. But then in 2006 when Google became super huge and actually added into the dictionaries as a word, that sparked the internet to completely change. As well as phones, because as many people know, the iPhone came along in 2007. The worlds first touchscreen smartphone.

Cloud Computing

Another really big thing that came along in 2007 was cloud computing. Allowing us to do everything that we want over the cloud. Which is now how we have Apple iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox and many more cloud-based services that now help us in our daily lives. I can tell you right now that just in this video, I used over 3 different major cloud services to help me make what you are watching right now. Also, fun fact, did you know that in 2009, in South Africa, it was faster for a pigeon to transfer 4gb of data over 60 miles then it was for 4gb to go over broadband. But you also need to realize that South Africa didn’t have the most advanced technology at that time, so it would’ve been faster in different countries.

On and On Because of YouTube 😉

Anyways, everything past 2007 has basically been documented here on YouTube because as many of you guys know YouTube was created in 2005, so basically, my last item on the timeline is YouTube. YouTube as you know is the cloud-based platform that allows people from all over the world to create and watch videos on the internet. And it is the house to many amazing channels such Coding Tricks…just saying, you guys should subscribe, it would help a lot.

Thanks

Anyways, that is it for our timeline, thanks for reading and as I said earlier, please, please be sure to follow, like, comment and share. It really helps me to grow, and I really have been trying to make better videos/blogs for you guys, so If you liked the blog or just wanted to say something, let me know in the comments, as I try to read almost every comment that I can. Anyways, thanks again for watching and will see you in the next Coding Tricks Video/Blog.