Let’s have a Conversation about Conversation by Ps Michael Podhaczky

Have you ever thought about the way you have conversations? Particularly in light of the growing trend towards electronic conversation. Well unbelievably, people have not always communicated as you do today. An interesting study is the history of communication and its evolution up until the present day. People have been able to talk to each other since creation. However, in the last 40 years there have been many changes in methods of communication. The following is a summary of the history of communication.

One of the earliest major inventions used for communication was the alphabet and writing. The very first postal service for government use was in China in 900BC. While the first recorded use of homing pigeons was to send word of the winner of the Olympic Games to the Athenians in 776BC. Then there were Papyrus rolls and early parchments made of dried reeds i.e. the first portable and light writing surfaces in 500BC to 170BC.

• The first bound books were used around 100AD. While one Tsai Lun of China invented paper as we know it in 105AD. The first movable type was invented (made from clay) in China by Pi Sheng 105AD. Then the communication of daily news through the first daily newspaper was in Leipzig, Germany in 1650.
  
• Joseph Henry invented the first electric telegraph in 1831. While Almon Strowger patented the direct dial telephone or automatic telephone exchange in 1889. Then in 1901 Guglielmo Marconi, transmitted radio signals from Cornwall to Newfoundland; the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean. Communication went to a new level when John Logie Baird transmitted the first experimental television signal in 1925.
  
• Computers were first sold commercially in 1951, while the first email was delivered in 1971. Then US government released control of the internet and WWW was born, making communication at lightning speed in 1994. AOL (America Online) Instant Messenger let users chat in 1985, while Blogging began in 1997. Then the communication phenomenon known as Facebook (another social networking website) was started for students at Harvard College in 2004. YouTube began storing and retrieving videos in 2005, and Twitter was launched as a social networking and micro-blogging site in 2006.

• The iPhone began shipping in 2009, and the first Android phone, the HTC Dream, started shipping in 2010. While Steve Jobs at an Apple press conference announced the iPad on January 27, 2010. However, the sharing of so much personal information via social media sites raised concern over privacy in 2011.[1]

So whether you are digital native, a digital immigrant (like me, ha-ha) or a ‘Visitor and Resident’ of technology; ‘How do you live as part of the communication information superhighway?’ Now that communication and technology has grown to such a size, can the giant be tamed? Or will it just continue growing and swallow us all? What are the personal, social and economic implications for you and your network of friends and family regarding the rapid change in the Digital Age? As a Christian (a resident of the Kingdom of Light and Son of God), can you be part of the communication technology and use it wisely? Instead of allowing it to own and use you?

Pause in His presence for a moment and think this over… To be continued.

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[1] “The History of Communication.” http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_history_of_communication.htm (13^th October 2015). “Timeline of the telephone.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_telephone (13^th October 2015). “iPad.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad (19^th September 2012). “The Brief History of Social Media.” http://www.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/NewMedia/SocialMedia/SocialMediaHistory.html (13^th October 2015).