Communication.

  We have it all now. Every means possible to get in touch with one another at any hour of the day or night. Imagine what it was like a century or two ago, if you wanted to send a message to anyone you’d have to get a messenger on horseback to deliver it for you and await weeks for the reply – a bit like how BT Cellnet used to operate before they became O2. A letter would be written; a carefully crafted thing where such forgotten things as punctuation, spelling, prose and handwriting would be agonised over. Maybe a slight dab of cologne on the envelope would be added to stimulate the olfactory system of a suitor or lover. How romantic. Imagine historical costume dramas where a lovelorn heroine sits by her stately home window watching the world pass by, her view obscured by the rivulets of rain cascading down the window; tears filling her eyes. Desperately she waits for the message from her beloved. And then, finally:

Beep Beeep Beeeeep Beeeep.

‘Praise be, Mr D’Arcy has finally texted one back’. 

The BBC wouldn’t touch it. (ITV might and with Ross Kemp as the lead naturally.)

From this we can deduce (well, I will) that communication technology has stripped us of many things. These things include: the ability to relax and switch off, patience, basic skills wot skool tried to teech uz and, most importantly, our contentment. Granted, it has made many things possible where life changing decisions and news can benefit us immediately. But these things don’t make us happy really. How many of you have anxiously sat by your computer/mobile waiting for that email/text/call from someone you love, for example, and have got more and more uptight the longer you’ve had to wait for it? The promise of the possibility of an instant reply makes us ‘happy’ but if we have to wait then the technology becomes an irritant, and isn’t long before the anxiety sets in awaiting yet more immediate correspondance. The star crossed lovers of yesteryear sent a letter and then got on with their lives, knowing that weeks bridged the gap between the sending and the response leaving plenty of time for elocution lessons or laughing at the nasty little common gardener who doesn’t speak properly.

We seek instant gratification and the more possiblities of this the better so we believe. I know a few people without mobile phones (yeah, weird huh?) and they seem absolutely fine with it. To the rest of us it is one of life’s most important appendages – we are constantly looking at them, playing with them, waiting for them to beep to tell us how popular we are. They get pride of place on tables and take precendance over conversation if they start chirruping with their incessantly ‘funky’ ringtones. How many times has your night out been a total pain as the person or people you are with just sit there texting people that aren’t with you or rabbit loudly on the phone? The best way to remedy this has to be leaving the room and then start a text conversation with them. When I was a kid your mum would tell you that so-and-so called you on the telephone but they’d call you back. Maybe two days later you still hadn’t heard back but it didn’t even register. You were either in or out, contactable or non-contactable. Easy. My major gripe is people using their cell phones on public transport – a real curse on us all and now there is news that we’ll be able to use our phones on aeroplanes in the near future. I think air rage is going to increase somewhat as some teenage oik plays tinny hip-hop all the way through a twelve hour flight or some self important business man loudly exclaims ‘I’m on a plane’ every ten minutes to someone not on the plane, luckily for them.

Computers are even worse. For one thing they don’t ever do what you want them to. They are designed to seize up, not open applications, open windows which turn invisible suddenly, interrupt you with pop ups, just stop working for no reason etc. Most of you have to deal with this sort of thing everyday – how much ire does this envoke in you? I’m a grumpy git so it makes me seethe. Bring back typewriters. At least with those when they went wrong all you had to do was replace the ink ribbon, de-stick the keys or chuck the piece of crinkled paper away. And hitting it actually made it work better sometimes.

 And with computers there are emails. There is no hiding place, especially at work. And spam? Oh Christ. How many more times will I be told that my penis is too small , my watch isn’t Swiss enough or that gambling is a good idea? None of these things will make my life better – even the first one as I’m not even using the mediocre length that I already have so getting an extension is a bit like buying a big car when I still don’t know how to drive. Computers also fuel addiction. Computers become an addiction in themselves. The PC has got me in its thrall – I can’t stop mucking around on Facebook but that doesn’t make me happy as on there you can see what everyone else is up to and it makes you feel like they have infinitely more chirpy fulfilling lives than yours. You also get to see your friends friends who might be your enemies and that can cause a great deal of unnecessary heart ache. There has just been a court case in the UK – the first stalking case to be caused by using Facebook. Without this possibility of finding old flames through social networks or other websites this stalker may have been able to move on with his life and save him, the girl and anyone else connected a lot of pain and worry. The temptation is there and unavoidable to a lot of people. People spiral into all sorts of deep trouble because of the internet and what its less than scrupulous users post or view. Yes, it’s useful too but like other forms of communication its ability to control our lives is sad and getting worse.

It makes me want to live on a desert island so maybe I’ll check Expedia. Oh hang on, that’s hypocritical isn’t it?