Eamonn Lynskey discusses our evolving relationship with one of mankind’s greatest inventions
It is now almost 150 years since a man asked a friend to come and see him. Nothing unusual in that, except that his friend appeared almost immediately at his side, even though he had been waiting in another room and was completely out of earshot. Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell had used his new device to relay his message and this landmark event on March 10, 1876 was the first phone call, albeit only over a very short distance. The following August saw Bell make contact between two towns eight miles apart in what was the world’s first long distance phone call. Both of these calls were only one-way contacts, but shortly afterwards on October the 9th the first two-way conversation over a phone-line happened in Boston, Massachusetts between two people, two and a half miles apart. This may seem a very rapid progress by Bell and his associates, but in fact it was the culmination of many years of patient research and experiment.
Because of the importance of communications in our world, many signalling systems were devised over the centuries. We’ve all heard of the Native Americans’ use of smoke signals, and the Aztecs too had a system for long distance messaging. But long before that, the Minoans of ancient times had devised a system of conveying signals by reflecting sunlight. The British Army further developed that system of communication by mirrors into the Heliograph in 1821. Many other refinements in messaging could be mentioned but the arrival of the telephone was, without doubt, singularly important, comparable with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455. This last-mentioned issued in the information age, but only for those who could read – a serious limitation in an age of widespread illiteracy.
No invention is without precursors, and Samuel Morse’s telegraph (1835) laid the groundwork which contributed much to Bell’s success. The telegraph
No invention is without precursors, and Samuel Morse’s telegraph (1835) laid the groundwork which contributed much to Bell’s success. The telegraph brought about a seismic change in communications world-wide with its all-but-immediate reporting of great events, such as up-to-date accounts of the Crimean War, which changed the nature of news reporting forever. That other popular modern communicator, television, made, and continues to make, a lasting impression on the way we view the world, providing us with images of far-off events as they happen. Reading about the horrors of the Crimea a day or two after the event was a revolutionary development but it pales when compared to the experience of seeing the horrors of the present war in Gaza (2024) only hours (or even minutes) after they unfold in real time.
Strong contenders all for the title of Most Important Invention in Communications. But none has had the user-friendly impact of the telephone. The telegraph was not a device that could be widely installed in households and it had a dedicated language system of communication (the Morse Code). By contrast, the telephone required only the ability to talk and listen. By the 1920s telephones were widespread in the developed world. It is no exaggeration to say that the telephone changed the nature of human activity on our planet.
The 1970s mobile phone – as big a a brick and almost as heavy – changed the way we communicate for ever
This revolutionising of our lives and lifestyles was accelerated when the desk telephone morphed into the mobile phone in 1973. Not alone did it then become even more user-friendly but by 1996 it had begun to connect with that other extraordinary modern phenomenon – the internet. The combination of these inventions is one of the most welcome advances of all time, transforming the phone into an enabling device in so many ways, one which is – literally – always at hand for that essential quick call; for supplying directions through the GPS (global positioning system) when its owner is hopelessly lost; and prompt in explaining the convoluted instructions which accompany the flatpack. It requires no special skills or language (no ‘morse code’), just the ability to talk and listen. This friendly little device has become so much a part of our lives that many of us will often turn back at the beginning of a journey to fetch the mobile phone which they have forgotten. Where would we be without it? Life is so much better. What’s not to like?
Unfortunately, there are several not-to-likes. One is the mobile phone’s continual intrusion into peoples’ privacy, especially by annoying calls from unscrupulous persons trying to entice us into fraudulent offers, also known as ‘scams.’ There are also those friends and acquaintances who, because you are their friend or acquaintance, feel they can phone you up at any time and talk in tedious detail about something in which you are only marginally interested but are too polite to say so.
And there are some more seriously annoying aspects. For instance, there is the way in which the mobile phone can interfere with one’s viewing of films, especially old black and white detective sagas where the tracking down or tailing of a suspect requires the private detective to be continually dodging in and out of phone booths to stay in contact with his colleagues. One cannot help being distracted by the thought of how useful a mobile phone would have been. And there are so many other films which never would have been made, had our helpful device been available. Certainly, in epics like De Mille’s The Ten Commandments a mobile phone, however useful, would have looked out of place in Moses’ pocket. But it would have been very handy in many much less significant films such as, say, Frozen, a 2010 thriller which tells the story of three snowboarders who, returning from their last run, get stranded on a ski lift when the lift operators switch off the power for a week, not realising there is anyone still en route. The three young friends have no way of contacting anyone and are left dangling high above the snow. And with the resort closed until the following weekend and with sub-zero temperatures …well, I do not want to spoil the narrative, but the thought that niggles continually in the mind of the viewer is that a mobile phone would have saved the day.
It would be very wrong to dwell too much on the negative aspects of a device which has made life so much easier to live. Nevertheless, it is continually in the news for some very wrong reasons. Garda statistics tell us that speeding, and drink/drug-driving account for many of the horrific yearly (and daily) deaths and injuries on Irish roads. The figures also suggest that the diminutive descendant of Alexander Bell’s great invention plays a major role in road carnage. Last year alone (2023), according to the Garda, there were 19,000 detections of motorists using their hand-held device while driving – and those are only the drivers apprehended. The statistics for 2024 show an increase in fatal accidents, which suggests that the problem is getting worse, and this despite numerous advertising campaigns (‘It won’t kill you if you put down your phone’) trying to get across the message that looking at your ‘mobile’ instead of keeping your eyes on the road ahead can have only one consequence.
Unease also continues to grow about the mobile phone’s detrimental effects on the young, and even on the very young of, say, six or seven years. No self-respecting teenager is now without a phone and continual contact with one’s friends and the opportunity to surf the internet at all times is seen as an essential part of any young person’s life. Adults too, the teenagers of yesterday, have progressed into an adulthood where the mobile phone and its internet technology has always been part of their lives. This unbridled access to everything and anything leads many adults to disappear into what was once only a fiction inspired by Lewis Carroll when his Alice fell into a rabbit hole in her adventures in Wonderland. The ‘rabbit holes’ of the internet are many and various. Alice met some very bizarre characters when she fell down hers, but none as sinister as what can be found on the internet – cyber bullying, harassment, outlandish conspiracy theories, fake news – and all available instantly in the palm of one’s hand.
Johannes Gutenberg in 1455. A pioneer in the information age, but only for those who could read – a serious limitation in an age of widespread illiteracy
Also much in the news is the complaints of teachers about the disruption of classroom learning by the presence of mobile phones. There were always disruptions in classrooms, from unruly pupils or from poor classroom management by teachers. But disruption by the mobile phone is more insidious and, by all accounts, has by now (2024) reached epic proportions. Time was when there was a big debate over how phones should be banned from the classroom. And, when that did not work (and it is hard now to believe that anyone seriously thought it could have worked), phones were permitted – but only phones without cameras. Of course, the ‘phones-without-cameras’ era did not last long and so this tiny agent provocateur, equipped with camera, sound recorder, and endless access to online information (which can help greatly with knotty exam questions) … in short, the modern world has arrived in the classroom and exam hall, and teaching will never be the same again. There is also much concern at the use of the mobile phone by young children for access to the seedier types of viewing, and yes, there are projects and policies announced by the authorities from time to time promising to curtail the more nefarious aspects of this devil’s invention, but the results are not encouraging.
Relevant to these concerns about the influence of the mobile phone is the strange bias often found in discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is a subject worthy of an essay in its own right, but must be touched upon in the context of mobile phone usage. While the positive aspects of AI are often mentioned – for instance as to how it will help discover medical problems more quickly, thereby allowing treatment at an earlier stage – in general the advent of AI seems to be viewed very negatively by many. There is disquiet over the emergence of a technology beyond programmable control – an emergence which many fear will herald a diminution of creative thought and personal freedoms, leading to an overreliance on technology for information and the ordering of our lives. The stage will be reached, we are warned, where people will have an electronic chip planted in their heads at birth which will determine their behaviour and give them instant access to information without them having to go to the trouble of looking it up, thereby causing them to lose the ability to think for themselves. In fact, it could be said that this dystopian ‘AI future’ has already arrived. By now (2024) most people have become so dependent on their mobile phone that this little trickster has already lured them a considerable way into the forthcoming world of much-feared AI dominance. As mentioned, many will not leave their homes without their iPhone, Nokia, Samsung or whatever. Such is their dependence that the difference between having a device lodged constantly in their pocket or inserted as a chip in their head by now seems rather marginal. We’ve all heard the sardonic comments from older people about how mobile phones have so much become attached to our teenagers’ ears that some have required surgery to take them off. But by now these elders have become no better themselves. One thing seems certain: we have all now entered an irreversible relationship with our mobile phones – for better or worse.
And speaking of ears, it was his work around the area of deafness that led Alexander Graham Bell to his great invention. Both his mother and his wife suffered from serious hearing impairment, and it was this that drove him to experiment with various alleviating devices. This circuitous route, and many years of patient experiment, finally enabled him to obtain the first United States patent for the telephone in 1876. He was very pleased with his success and of its contribution to the general good but, ironically, to the end of his days (2 August 1922), the Great Inventor refused to have a telephone in his study. He had one elsewhere in his house of course, but considered having a phone on his desk too intrusive and distracting while he was working. Wise man.
