Difference between revisions of "325--Week 8 Questions/Comments"
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In "Memoir of a Telephone Operator" I also noticed that the telephone was seen as an toy when it was first invented; this is basically due to the fact that no one could afford the invention. Those people do not know how much the telephone is not only used in our lives, but how much it has changed our day to day lives, if they did I am guessing it would be seen as a toy to them. But what makes me think is how the telephone has changed, especially over the past ten years. If one thinks about it, telephones have gone from a toy to a necessity, back to being a toy. With the Apple iPhone, gadgets and games that comes with a phone these days, it is hard to find a phone that is just a phone. Did we get bored with the technology or are these improvements which can make our lives easier? Time will have to tell...--Jimmy Conroy | In "Memoir of a Telephone Operator" I also noticed that the telephone was seen as an toy when it was first invented; this is basically due to the fact that no one could afford the invention. Those people do not know how much the telephone is not only used in our lives, but how much it has changed our day to day lives, if they did I am guessing it would be seen as a toy to them. But what makes me think is how the telephone has changed, especially over the past ten years. If one thinks about it, telephones have gone from a toy to a necessity, back to being a toy. With the Apple iPhone, gadgets and games that comes with a phone these days, it is hard to find a phone that is just a phone. Did we get bored with the technology or are these improvements which can make our lives easier? Time will have to tell...--Jimmy Conroy | ||
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| + | I find it interesting that in 1893 Mrs. Rayne describes that men in the telegraph business were paid more because they had greater endurance, had better transcribing skills, and had more “nerve” than women. Yet, Katherine Schmitt, when describing her early years in the 1880s as an operator, says that men didn’t last long working in the telephone operating business because they were rowdy and rude, leading to them being “abolished.” What made men supposedly better than women at telegraph operating, but not telephone operating? -- Taylor Brann | ||
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| + | It’s interesting to see the telephone’s early growth into a security system, particularly how women would leave the phone off the hook while they were alone at home so an operator could hear if something happened. Or more so, how some women actually left their children at home alone with the phone as a babysitter that could contact mothers if the children started crying. Paranoid? A little bit. Irresponsible? Very much so. But I think it certainly shows a growing trust in communication technology. -- Taylor Brann | ||
== Ronell on Thomas Watson == | == Ronell on Thomas Watson == | ||
