One frequently observes people who appear to be the captives of their phones and other screen-based devices, and many concerns have been raised about the effects of this behavior. Reading Merritt Ierley’s book “Wondrous Contrivances: Technology at the Threshold”, I was amused to see the following passage in a chapter about a letter written in the mid-1920s concerning the then-new technology of radio. The letter was sent to NYC radio station WEAF by a man whose family had just acquired a receiver:
It is 5:25 PM–you have just finished broadcasting; you have practically finished breaking up a happy home. Our set was installed last evening. Today, my wife has not left her chair, listening all day. Our apartment has not been cleaned, the beds are not made, the baby not bathed–and no dinner ready for me.
A little quick on the trigger, I’d say…good grief, they’d just gotten the radio the previous evening. I wonder what happened over the next few days, and how common this experience/reaction was.
Some reactions, though, were much more positive about the influence of radio. Writer Stanley Frost thought radio had the ability to reach out to “illiterate or broken people,” making them “for the first time in touch for the world around them,” and reprinted a letter received by WJZ in Newark:
My husban and I thanks yous all fore the gratiss programas we received every night and day from WJZ…The Broklin teachers was grand the lecturs was so intresing…the annonnser must be One grand man the way he tell the stories to the children.
And in an article titled ‘Radio Dreams That Can Come True’, Collier’s Magazine asserted hopefully that radio could lead to a “spreading of mutual understanding to all sections of the country, unifying our thoughts, ideals, and purposes, and making us a strong and well-knit people.”
Thoughts?
Radio? We can go back further. Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus was against writing because he thought it led to forgetfulness. I’m sure he was walking around the agora in Athens telling people to stop wasting their lives and get their heads out of books.
The use of communications technology whether radio, TV, Internet/phones need to be a mindful exercise
Different forms of communication demand different kinds of attention from the recipient. Radio did have the characteristic of requiring the listener to pay close attention and build pictures in his own mind — in a throwback to the Ancient Greeks listening to Homer.
One interesting example involves those zany English comedians who created “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. Some years before that, they had created a BBC radio program (back when radio programs still existed) called “I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again”. Some of the skits from the radio programs found their way into the TV series — I think they tended to be much funnier when delivered over the radio, probably because the listener had to visualize the scene himself.
The only constant is change. Printed books are on the path to being replaced by audio books. Broadcast TV is dying. I sometimes wonder if the smartphone is just a fad, destined to follow Citizen Band radio into obscurity.
In terms of being ‘enslaved’ to a device, does anybody else remember the days when you automatically grabbed any phone that was ringing as quickly as possible? Always expected a phone call would be answered by a person?
Gavin…I’ve heard that when television first came our, some kid was asked whether he preferred TV or radio. He said he liked radio more, because “the pictures are better.”
Musical accompaniment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV5OFBPSQVU
Extrapolating form Christopher B’s observation about ringing phones, I wonder, especially in the beginning, if people weren’t used to listening closely when someone was talking to them. It probably took some adjustment to get over the idea that not paying attention to the radio was being rude to whoever was talking.
Radios were also big, heavy and expensive, requiring I believe three different batteries. They ran off lead acid batteries that had to be recharged. They weren’t very loud or clear, so you had to sit near and pay attention, especially during the day. No listening while you did housework, maybe sewing and mending.
Is that what we want? Everyone having the same thoughts? The same purposes? Looks to me like radio and its successors have been instruments of a creeping totalitarianism in America. Watch the T.V. news on different channels; they are all reading from the exact same script.
MCS … From a quick Google it looks like what these folks are talking about is likely not radio per se but the introduction of batteryless radios that used AC powered tubes. The timeframe fits.
I don’t know how representative my reading has been but I recall hints that one person reading aloud from a book or periodical to an assembled group or family was common in the late 1800s and early 1900s. People were probably quite used to listening to a voice while doing other things but these commentators had a hard time seeing the continuity and focused on the new. That’s a familiar disconnect, and that housewife could have just as easily been distracted by neighbors coming over to gossip.