Rhymes of History Technology
In the late 1800s telephone operators created an atmosphere
of intimacy between customers. Often one operator would serve the same group of
customers daily. Customers began to recognize their operator’s voice and
identified them as individuals. Often, operators become dependent upon to
obtain various information at hand, such as the latest news, weather, time, and
even gossip.
Twitter and other instant messages model the original
telephone operator connecting information from one source to many others.
Depending upon others becomes hereditary and necessary to one’s life by the
innate need and desire to depending on others for support.
According to Kelly’s concepts of embodiment, telephone
operators were the source or portal connecting one machine to another, (Kelly,
2007). Acquiring various types of information (e.g. current events, weather,
etc.) the telephone operator restructured a means of delivery from visual to
auditory. Lastly, society became co-dependent on the telephone operator in the
early 1900’s, similar to today’s society becoming dependent on transmitting and
receiving information instantly via Twitter or other sources of instant
messaging.
References:
Kelly, K. (2007, December). Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000
days of the Web [Speech]. Speech
delivered
at the EG 2007 Conference, Los Angeles. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html
Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Rhymes of history.
Baltimore, MD: Author.
IEEE Global History Network (2012). Telephone operators.
Retrieved from
