Over Connected

Do you remember the good (debatable) old days? When you had to actually call someone on a corded phone to arrange things?

For my younger viewers, phones used to be connected to a wall in your house. There were usually two or three in a house and your distance from the wall depended entirely on the length of the cord. So, yes, you could get a call from your friend and then have to talk to them while standing in the living room while your family watched tv. And listened to you. Always listening.

To get an example of how these corded phones worked, here’s a short bit of dialogue:

You dial Dave’s number.

Dave’s father answers. You say ‘hi, is Dave there?’

He would answer. ‘Is this that no-good piece of #$% YOURNAME? I thought I told you to never call my son again!’ He hangs up.

You call again.

‘Good evening,’ you would say in a disguised voice. ‘Might I talk to David LASTNAME?’

‘Sure,’ he would say. ‘Who’s calling?’

‘Uh, not YOURNAME.’

You get the idea.

You had to actually make plans IN ADVANCE while at home or at a payphone in order to meet up with someone and do stuff. If you got a detail wrong, such as the time or place, you had literally no way to tell them unless you had access to a phone.

Which, remember, is attached to a wall, so unless you’re in a place with payphones or someone who will let you use theirs, you’re out of luck. 

I will not bother explaining life before answering machines. Are having three tv channels. Or records/8-tracks/cassettes. Or stick-shifts.

Nowadays, everyone has a cell phone and you just call or text or Tinder or something and you can talk to whomever you want at any time.

NOTE: I am old, I no longer know these things.

Which brings me to my point. I currently have FOUR separate programs on my computer to talk to people: Skype, Discord, Slack, and WhatsApp (all of which I use for one person each). I can also be contacted via Facebook and by (at least) three email accounts. I also have a phone with which I can receive texts.

And lest I forget, you can also talk on the phone. Yes, strange, but true.

All told, there are probably nine different ways I can be contacted at any given time.

And yet, I can’t seem to get in touch with anyone is less than three days. It takes multiple chat messages, an email or two, and sometimes a text to get them to respond. What’s the point of having all these programs if no one ever seems to look at them?

In the (may or not be good) old days, a phone call was important. Now it’s just an annoyance.

Anyway, if I’ve sent you a text/email/message/thingie, please contact me back. I’ve got every possible mode of communication waiting.

Cheers,

-Jason