When Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it was a revolution in communication. For the first time, people could talk to each other over great distances almost as clearly as if they were in the same room. Nowadays, though, we increasingly use Bell’s invention for emails, faxes and the internet rather than talking. Over the last two decades a new means of spoken communication has emerged: the mobile phone.
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The modern mobile phone is a more complex version of the two-way radio. Traditional two-way radio was a very limited means of communication. As soon as the users moved out of range of each other’s broadcast area, the signal was lost. In the 1940s, researchers began experimenting with the idea of using a number of radio masts located around the countryside to pick up signals from two-way radios. A caller would always be within range of one of the masts; when he moved too far away from one mast, the next mast would pick up the signal. (Scientists referred to each mast’s reception area as being a separate “cell”; this is why in many countries mobile phones are called “cell phones”.)
However, 1940s technology was still quite primitive, and the “telephones” were enormous boxes which had to be transported by car.
The first real mobile telephone call was made in 1973 by Dr Martin Cooper, the scientist who invented the modern mobile handset. As soon as his invention was complete, he tested it by calling a rival scientist to announce his success. Within a decade, mobile phones became available to the public. The streets of modern cities began to feature sharp-suited characters shouting into giant plastic bricks. In Britain the mobile phone quickly became synonymous with the “yuppie”, the new breed of young urban professionals who carried the expensive handsets as status symbols. Around this time many of us swore that we would never, ever own a mobile phone.
But in the mid-90s, something happened. Cheaper handsets and cheaper calling rates meant that, almost overnight, it seemed that everyone had a mobile phone. And the giant plastic bricks of the 80s had evolved into smooth little objects that fitted nicely into pockets and bags. In every pub and restaurant you could hear the bleep and buzz of mobiles ringing and registering messages, occasionally breaking out into primitive versions of the latest pop songs. Cities suddenly had a new, postmodern birdsong.
Moreover, people’s timekeeping changed. Younger readers will be amazed to know that, not long ago, people made spoken arrangements to meet at a certain place at a certain time. Once a time and place had been agreed, people met as agreed. Somewhere around the new millennium, this practice started to die out. Meeting times became approximate, subject to change at any moment under the new order of communication: the Short Message Service (SMS) or text message. Going to be late? Send a text message! It takes much less effort than arriving on time, and it’s much less awkward than explaining your lateness face-to-face. It’s the perfect communication method for the busy modern lifestyle. Like email before it, the text message has altered the way we write in English, bringing more abbreviations and a more lax approach to language construction. The160-character limit on text messages has led to a new, abbreviated version of English for fast and instantaneous communication. Traditional rules of grammar and spelling are much less important when you’re sitting on the bus, hurriedly typing “Will B 15min late - C U @ the bar. Sorry! :-)”.
Mobile phones, once the preserve of the high-powered businessperson and the “yuppie”, are now a vital part of daily life for an enormous amount of people. From schoolchildren to pensioners, every section of society has found that it’s easier to stay in touch when you’ve got a mobile. Over the last few years mobiles have become more and more advanced, with built-in cameras, global positioning devices and internet access. And in the next couple of years, we can expect to see the arrival of the “third generation” of mobile phones: powerful micro-computers with broadband internet access, which will allow us to watch TV, download internet files at high speed and send instant video clips to friends.
Alexander Graham Bell would be amazed if he could see how far the science of telephony has progressed in less than 150 years. If he were around today, he might say: “That’s gr8! But I’m v busy rite now. Will call U 2nite.”
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Quang Duy writes “After centuries of new inventions nowadays we lead modern lives, and mobile phones have become inseparable things. They make our lives easier. Mobile phones help us communicate with other people very fast. Thanks to Alexander Bell, thanks to his invention of the telephone. Now the production of mobile phones is very expensive. A lot of companies make more and more money. I think in the future , more and more modern mobile phones will appear. And we will even be able to use our mobile phones to control the TV. Why not?”
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Line from Denmark writes “I have a friend who is almost always late. If we arrange a meeting at a café, she never arrives on time, but just sends me an SMS, saying that she’ll be 20 minutes late. Then I take a quick walk in the shops and return to the café. Still she doesn’t turn up, because there is a new SMS saying that now she’ll definitely be there in another 20 minutes. Apparently there is no need for excuses since she has now said that she’ll be late. So when she turns up, we sit down as if nothing has happened. This annoys me so much, that I sometimes think of not turning the other cheek and just arriving 30 minutes late. I mean, I could send an SMS!”
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la-Stefi writes "What do I think? I think that mobile phones are a good thing because you should be reachable everywhere. I bought my first mobile phone when my daughter was born, I was very worried about going away without her because I feared something serious could occur in my absence. What about if I don’t want to be disturbed? Very easy! I can identify the number calling and choose to answer or not.
What about new younger behavior? I let you know another practice in use among the young. Do only a few bleeps to give a message in a pre-established code, for example, one bleep: please call me, two bleeps: I’m arriving, three bleeps: I miss you. It’s a very useful and cheap communication mode."
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Grace Liu writes "I put myself in deep thinking after finishing reading this article. What does the mobile phone give us, good things or bad things?
I don't want to deny the good effect the mobile phone gives us, it make us communicate more conveniently, and keep in touch everywhere. But every coin has two sides. I find I have no privacy, my boss and friends can easily find me whenever they want. I am often woken by the ring of my mobile phone, just my friends wanting to tell me a joke, and my happy weekend time is often broken by my boss, just because he needs me to work overtime. I haven’t been able to enjoy a whole quiet day since the day I owned the mobile phone. It is an interesting thing that I will be upset if I have my mobile phone power off, I don't know if I have began to rely on it, so my mobile phone is on 24 hours a day.
I find the emergence of mobile phones make us lose good habits, such as punctuality. When we couldn’t keep in touch so easily, if we had a date with someone, we tried our best to arrive on time. But now, because of the mobile phone, we are not afraid of being late any more. If we are likely to be late, we will call him and say I am sorry I will be late, it seems that I am on time if I give him a late call.
The third thing is that the mobile phone makes me put much money in it. With the development of science, the mobile phone has changed more and more quickly, I can’t keep pace with the changes. I am conscious of the quick changes from big mobile phones to advanced mobile phones that can download films and send photos. I have changed my mobile phone four or five times, about one time every year, and so spend too much money on it.
Of course, we can’t come back to the time of no phones, and I can’t image the time that we had no phones. The mobile phone gives us a lot of good things, but we should not neglect the bad aspects."
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Maximuum writes "What are the advantages and disadvantages of mobile phones? I think it is important to think why we use mobile phones. We should know our aims. We use all technical things, such as mobile phones, laptops, cameras, the Internet etc. We should use things to satisfy our needs easily. If we know how, we can turn off our mobile phone when we don’t want to be disturbed by someone. If we know how to use a mobile phone, we can eliminate many disadvantages. IT has more advantages than disadvantages. We can communicate everywhere, which is very important. Nowadays mobile phones have many good features - we can take photos and send them all over the world."
Jasna from Serbia writes “A mobile phone is one of the best inventions ever. It makes our lives easier. For example, if you’re driving a car in the middle of nowhere and you have a tire flat, you can call someone for help. Another good thing is that people can always reach you and therefore you can never miss something important. Thanks to mobile phones, you can proceed and get in information much faster. From this point of view, I can hardly understand how we managed to live without it.”
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What do you think? Are mobile phones a good thing or a bad thing? Have they changed the way people think and/or behave? Have they changed the way people write English? Send us your opinions.
HowStuffWorks: how telephones work
HowStuffWorks: how cell phones work
The Media History Project Connections Pages: telephony
The Great Idea Finder: fascinating facts about the invention of the telephone
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