Do You know how distorted and difficult was the Communication Process in Early Times?
We saw the dawn of liberalisation initially in the year 1991. With most of the nations dismantling its economic boundaries, it was a signal towards a new global evolution wherein we could perceive and fore-see that in the times to come the entire human race on the earth planet would be tied by one very thin string called communication across the globe. We were not aware about its speed and accuracy at that point of time, when I saw and touched the dialling phone instrument in late 1995. It was not like whosoever I wanted to call; I just start dialling the number and the desired person on the other end would say, hello..hiiiii, who is this and all….. The process was really tiring and first I was supposed to call the operator sitting in telephone exchange and then request him further to book a call on particular telephone number where I wanted to talk. But can you imagine how horrible experience it was, sometimes? Simply horrible, the operator used to go asleep and I used to wait for hours together, waiting for him that he will connect my call and I will talk. Hehehe…. try to imagine. My dear friends, you, modern generation can’t even think of the situation that we faced and existed duringpre1991, the distorted process of communication. As in all cases, this system of communication had both its merits and demeritsconnected to it.
Letter Writing and Rural Fairs : Famous Tools of Communication
And you all might have heard that prior to that time even the means of communication was only the letter and the honesty of postman who used to visit us along with a letter, whether to visit and deliver the letter on time or not. That was the only means in villages and the “INLAND” blue coloured envelope, oh my god, it used to come like a message of almighty Lord. After reading it with fast heart beats all family members and neighbours used to sit together to listen to the message that the letter carried. Another traditional mode of communication was village fairs and all the rural folks waited for such fairs with high level excitement as these were the forums where people , young and old, males and females used to “meet and greet” after long spell of month and years. I can compare such rural fairs with modern Facebook, linked-in and many such forums but here you need not to wait rather you can visit and talk to your friends as many times as you wish in day.
Technology Re-defined Communication Process?
Without digging further deeper into my past times, let me straightway come to the point that economic liberalisation which started showing its signs in the year 1991 , almost all the major country heads started deliberations over this issue at different levels many different global trade forums, global associations came up with different names with the objective of making mutual trade of goods , services and transfer of technology, easy and swift between the nations.Everything started transforming within no time and the new tariff laws which were now not that stringent, new taxation parameters , export and import laws underwent massive changes which facilitated easy trade, easy communication and of course easy travel across the globe.
Now the major challenge before the nations was developing the fastest means of communication across the national boundaries so that the easements and facilitation processes brought in different segments of economies could be made to benefit the humanity at large. Trading and technology transfer was made easy and the common protocols were developed by global stakeholders.
As a consequence of the efforts made by global communities, the newtechnology made a leap and entered into the digital marketplace between the years 1994 and in 1998, Google was founded. Blogger came soon after in 1999. By this moment the social networking sites began to pop-p and Blackberry launched their own mobile email program alongwith few more mobile and software companies.
How was my experience with “My First Mobile Phone” ?
I came to know about the mobile phone in the year 2000 when one of my boss told to purchase mobile and keep updating him about the latest events and progress, while I was in the National Capital, leading a group of rural activists from hilly state. On the directions of my boss I bought a heavy weight nokia phone (forgot the model) with long antenna . And first call that I tried and succeeded in getting through to my same boss. But do you know, after making 4, 5 calls the balance of Rs 300 / – reached zero and I was dis-heartened .
The modern era of fast communication began in the form of mobile technology and Nokia’s windows OS was initially used and soon after the present Android OS with revolutionary changes took over the reins of digital word leaving even iOS far behind . Nobody expected for Newsweek to go totally digital in its production? Most of us really didn’t see that one coming, but after the first of next year, the magazine giant will be available in only a digital format. This is probably a pretty big clue for the rest of us on what to expect in future trends in the world of digital revolution and obvious marketing strategies. Even though our world is largely digitally based, it was not always that way and it had a seemingly insignificant start.
Even prior to the modern times the consistent efforts were made by all the stake-holders and the following developments were seen during this period.
FIRST INTERNET: ARPANET adopted TCP / IP on January 1983 and from that point research was initiated to assemble networks of network which took birth in the form of modern internet.
FIRST WWW:The online world took a more visible form in 1990 when a computer scientist TIM BERNRS LEE invented the World Wide Web which is famous as www, and indicates the path to the command.
FIRST MOBILE WITH INTERNET: The first mobile with internet access and connectivity was Nokia 9000 Communicator. It was first launched in Finland , back in the year 1996 but because the price of internet was very high it was made available by Sonera and Radiolinja Networks.
FIRST E-MAIL:We all know that first e-mail was sent by Ray Tomlinson in the year 1971. He is also famous for having introduced the use of “@” symbol in email address to separate the name of the user from the name of the user’s machine.
FIRST DOMAIN: The first ever domain name over server registered on the internet was “symbolics.com” on 15th March 1985 by now defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics.
CHATS & SOCIAL MEDIA: In the year 1980 the home computers became more common in black and white DoS based command system and social communication started taking most sophisticated form. The chats over internet relays or IRCs were used in 1988 first and it continued un-stopably to become more popular in 1990.
FIRST SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL:The most famous social media site was created in 1997 with the name “Six Degree” which enabled the users to upload profile and allowed to interact with other users over the internet.
FIRST BLOG:The first blog was created over the internet in 1999 and it became sensations among internet and social media users and it is popular even today. Blogging transformed the face of social media and its popularity exploded in a big way. The websites like “MySpace and Linked-in” gained high prevalence in the year 2000 and other websites like PhotoBucket and Flickr initiated online photo sharing, a never thought task and never expected by the people of my times.
YOUTUBE & FACEBOOK: In the year 2005, by invent of YouTube a new way of communication took birth and new trend of communicating and sharing over long distances became a very easy and interesting for everyone. Facebook and Twitter took birth in the year 2006 and users across the globe started instant communications with the help of these social media tools. Other Social media sites were Tumblr, Spotify, Foursquare and Pinterest were also started and gained popularity among the masses.
And You know the present scenario with the invent of Jio mobiles and very low priced internet access everybody whether rural or urban, rich or poor, male or female , literate or illiterate are
making use of internet frequently.
I made an effort to inform the modern generation about the communication tools of our times and described in a chronological manner, in brief, as how the modern era of Social Media and fast communication started. How was the journey from early 1970s to 2019. Please go through and enjoy the small piece of information that I presented to you and comment whether you liked or is there any discrepancy lie there in it.
In the coming articles I am going to elaborate the use of social media, its pros and cons on the younger generation and how to optimise its use for our benefit.
Stay attuned and keep following me
H S Rana