It Must Be Something Else
- noelgraphica
- Jan 28, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Feb 1, 2022
Ever see people walking their dogs and it’s the people being pulled along by the leash? Who’s walking who? Human ingenuity creates technology. Yet technology seems to have a life all its own. And we try to keep up...
1994
I was trying to be pleasant. I didn’t want this man to see how ridiculous I thought he was. His futuristic ramblings weren’t helping. I was trying to run my business without a phone! Yet this phone technician was going on about the demise of telephone landlines. His predictions -— that phones would soon be personal items — seemed absurd. Had he said phones would become personal computers, high resolution cameras, boom boxes, tracking devices, shopping services, video recorders and navigation aids, I would have politely shown him the door.
The apartment on Heights Boulevard
Charm on steroids. High ceilings throughout with detailed wood trim. The front door led directly into the drawing room — an oval room with large plate-glass windows that looked out onto the ample wrap-around porch. The branches of a large oak tree teased it’s fingers toward the Adirondack chairs stationed like soldiers around the curve of the house. The porch provided a grand view of activity on the boulevard below. Gentle breezes provided a reprieve from the Houston heat. I used the drawing room for my business office. Clients loved it.
Years ago this old Victorian had catered to young men who worked the oil fields near Beaumont, Texas just east of Houston. Two roughnecks would share a bedroom and a car. They worked the fields one week on, one week off. Their alternate work schedules enabled them to share the room, as well as the car getting back and forth. The apartment had history, sophistication, curb appeal, and location, location, location. What it did not have was a phone line.
Need a lineman?
The phone technician said the wires had to be replaced. With the future of landlines in question, the phone company had to approve any work order to replace wires. The technician would have to jump through hoops to get approval quickly. Meanwhile, my only option was a pay phone half a block away.
I tried to make the best of it. I made my way down the boulevard several times a day, my dog in tow, alcohol wipes in hand. That pay phone was nasty. The impatient part of me — most of me — questioned whether I’d made a mistake. A great apartment, but was it worth this? I mean, a place without phone service — that’s crazy!
Got a minute for some history?
Walking to the corner I often passed an elderly man sitting in a lawn chair. He was eager to speak with anyone who would engage. He had lived in his home his entire life -— 100 years on his next birthday. He was a grand storyteller with a twinkle in his eye.
He leaned forward, studying my face in anticipation of my reaction. “Know who used to live upstairs in your house years ago?” I offered that I’d heard it was a boarding house, but that’s all I knew. A large grin spread across his wrinkled face. “Well, one of those oil field workers was a young and, soon to be famous, Clark Gable. I remember him.”
I hurried back to that nasty pay phone. I called my landlord. Was it true?
“Well,” she hesitated, “it’s generally considered true. No proof. But if we could prove it, we’d ask a lot more for the place. So be glad! You get the locally accepted folklore without the premium price. And since the upstairs beyond your apartment was added on much later — some part of your space would certainly be where he slept.”
That information gave me some leverage. The “Clark Gable” conversation now dwarfed all the snarky comments people made about my not having a phone. They were still put out with me. Yet no one suggested I buy an expensive cell phone. No one had that expectation. It was understood that an apartment would have a working phone. The technician assured me it would be fixed. He just couldn’t promise how soon.
Perspective needed here
Looking back, I remember just how crazy I thought that phone technician was. He predicted people would be walking around with lightweight phones in less than ten years. Sure, some day, yes — but that soon? Buying each family member an expensive phone? Carrying them around all the time? Even children in school? Madness!
Those clunky, first phones were really car phones and not practical. The first cell phone was invented by Motorola almost 20 years earlier in 1973. It weighed almost 2½ pounds. Cell phones were finally getting more streamlined in the mid-1980s, but they were just phones. Socially synonymous with “nuisance” — they rang at awkward times, rudely interrupting.
Then, the BlackBerry came out in 1999, just five years after my conversation with the technician. The iPhone came out in 2007, just a few years past his ten-year estimate. That technician had been very much on his game.
Technology driving social change
Part of the reason I was so incredulous was that I was also resistant to the technician’s forecast. I saw more than convenience at stake. The social nature of communication itself hung in the balance. The rhythm of the exchange of information. The give and take. The boundaries of intimacy. The virtues of privacy.
As a freelancer, I should have welcomed the idea of a portable phone. Keeping in touch with clients was imperative. My answering machine faithfully recorded messages. It kept them safe until I was ready to hear them. Until I was ready.
How dare you not attend to me!
Several years prior to that conversation with the phone technician, my answering machine broke. I wasn’t sure whether to repair or replace it. It took several days to find a solution. Not only were my clients upset, but my friends and family blasted me when I finally got a new answering machine. It turned out, not being able to leave a message was major. I had committed an unforgivable sin. I’d cut them off.
We’re none of us perfect. I get frustrated whenever I hear that eerie recording reporting the message box is full. I can’t leave a message? Oh no, what do I do? Now, there are lots of options. We can text, email, instant message, post to social media, not to mention the thing no one does anymore — send a letter. We can also exercise some patience.
Instant gratification as a baseline
There’s something very satisfying about hearing yourself leave a message. In a way, it’s as good as speaking to the person. Our business is done. We actually have spoken to the person, they just haven’t heard it yet. We don’t have to remember to do anything. The ball is in their court. But if we can’t place a message our effort is thwarted. We’re right back where we started. Still another thing to do with no way to get it done right this minute.
I remember a Bizarro cartoon by Dan Piraro, that captured this so well. A man is fleeing an angry mob in the street. The the caption read something like: “Look. There he is! The last man NOT to have an answering machine. Let’s get him!”
I didn’t have to imagine how that fleeing guy felt. I had lived it. Now, I was reliving it. Staying in the apartment meant I was at the mercy of the villagers and their torches for weeks. But I was enamored with this quaint old apartment that, in my mind, I shared with Clark Gable. Eventually, the new wires were in place. I had a working phone. I issued apologies along with my new number.
Am I a Luddite?
Merriam Webster defines Luddite as “one who is opposed to especially technological change.”(1) It’s not that I’m opposed, but some breathing room would be nice. Once new technology becomes available, there’s a driving force to make it the new norm immediately. It’s a no-brainer. Here’s this shiny new thing! Embrace it! We’ve picked up the pace. Try to keep up.
I know I should have welcomed the idea of a portable phone. But I did not.
First of all, a large part of my success comes from the ability to tap into my creativity. Interruptions destroy that process. Not by just a little — but by a lot.
Also, I carried a pager when I first started freelancing, then quickly gave it up. I found that when people left messages, back then at least, you could get back with them later. Getting a page meant they expected me to drop everything and call them. During that time I got lots of pages. Not one page was about anything urgent. Not even vaguely.
Am I a time traveler?
Each year, in American society, there are fewer of us who can recall what it was like to live without an immediate digital connection — literally, a computer in our hand.
Yet it really wasn’t so long ago that we didn’t even have cell phones. No cell phones meant keeping in touch was different. Problem-solving was different. Things played out differently. So our stories were different. Our lives were different.
Now there’s a new social code — immediate access to everyone all the time. Nonstop communication whether you intend to or not. Take too long to respond to a text and you’ll see. You’re actually communicating something nasty by your slow response. The digital cold shoulder. You’re letting them know they’re not important. Message received.
What it is it?
Your phone becomes the thing that accompanies you in life. Whether to amuse you, help you, or connect you — it’s always there. And it’s smart. Whatever you don’t know — it can find out. Instantly.
It’s not just another telephone. It must be something else.
Said Marc Porat, the man who sketched that “something else” in a red book almost 30 years ago. The documentary, General Magic, tells the story of this silicon valley company. Although its work affected billions of people, it seems no one has heard of it. General Magic’s first product launch — a personal digital assistant, or PDA — was imminent at the time I was standing in my kitchen with that phone technician and his crystal ball. (2)
“Not just another telephone” was on it’s way. The “something else” wasn’t here yet. People were still living in the old ways. They checked messages when they got home. The radio was their only distraction while driving. They’d hear a funny joke and commit it to memory, so they could tell someone in person. Then they’d get to experience their friend’s reaction to the joke. They listened to music on discs. They kept maps in the glove box. They waited.
The product launch of General Magic’s PDA was a failure. At the time, no one saw its potential as a step toward “not just another telephone.” A woman interviewed on the street about the new PDA remarked decisively, “No. I don’t need that.” I said the same thing about a cell phone. Continual access? Seriously? What’s so urgent?
John Battelle of Wired Magazine (2) summed it up best:
What it really comes down to is a personal decision as to whether or not you really wanna be in touch all the time.
But as new technology alters the norms of society, we may no longer be able to make that decision for ourselves.
“Luddite.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Luddite. Accessed 4 Jan. 2021.
General Magic: The Most Influential Silicon Valley Company No One Has Ever Heard Of. A film by Sarah Kerruish, Matt Maud & Michael Stern, Gravitas Ventures: A Red Arrows Studio Company. Spellbound Productions II in Association with Renior Pictures & Left Eye Blind, 2018.
Photo courtesy of Quino Al at Unsplash.com.
Comments