TALK TO ME!
An Essay
By
C. Neuroticus Absolutus
Man's predecessors
may not have always been social creatures, but they eventually
realized the benefits of, and safety in, numbers. They grew from
paired mates to family units to clans, tribes, and beyond to the
megalopolises that are the social experiments of today. This growth
was probably not possible without language.
As with most
species, early man’s survival depended on early warnings against
threats and predators, communicating the location of food, water and
safe shelter against the ravages of nature. Before language
developed, perhaps early communications included grunts, shrieks,
whistles and screeches—much like those used today by our primate
cousins and some rednecks. Sharp glares, gaping, toothy snarls and a
slap alongside the head left no question that someone was laying
claim to that tasty brontosaurus rump you’d been gnawing—or in
the case of vegan ancestors, perhaps that stalk of bananas you staked
out as your own. Predictably, the head slap became annoying and the
slappee finally muttered, “Hey, man! Can’t we talk about
this?”—to which the slapper replied with robust chest
beating or the activation of a malodorous defense system highly
developed by some homo sapiens. Yeah, I know man didn’t live in the
time of the dinosaurs, but according to Darwin, his ancestors did.
As for mating, the display of three-inch incisors a mere
hair’s-breadth from the tip of one’s nose, coupled with a breath
smelling of yesterday’s meal of baboon butt, was probable cause
for a suitor to withdraw from a skirmish meant to decide who owned
the harem, which everyone knows is high maintenance. As for early
homo sapien females, no language was required to determine what the
alpha male wanted. It was always the same and, headache or not, his
intentions were universally understood. For those slow to catch on, a
smack alongside the head easily compelled the correct response, until
one early feminist warned, “Yo, dude. Do that again and you’re
reproductive capabilities will become severely limited!” This
wisdom was passed down through the generations and finally carved in
stone shortly after the issuance of the first Swiss Army knife.
Note that even these
basic forms of communication did not consist merely of vocalizations.
Homo sapiens and some other species detect sophisticated nuances from
vocal inflections—volume, tone, pitch, pace, pauses—and, for us,
word selection. We augment our voices with facial expressions, hand
movements and even posture to add meaning to each word and thought we
vocalize. Understanding these complex transmissions is necessary to
comprehend the true—the intended—meaning of the communicator. To
draw a parallel with modern times, I believe it is safe to say we all
know the meaning of a shout, an angry scowl and a single finger
displayed in rush-hour traffic. A word of caution: Some drivers are
ambidextrous.
Some linguists
theorize that at some point, protohumans must have used a
protolanguage and, according to one theory, estimate that first
hypothetical language developed between 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
A sound byte is available at BuggaBugga.edu.
Early man probably felt the need to increase the distance over which
he could effectively communicate, the development of which would
greatly improve security. A big break in long distance communication
followed the development of written language. The first known written
language, dated to circa 3500 BC, comes from the ancient city
of Harappa, Pakistan, predating Egyptian and Mesopotamian finds. The
Harappa writing has not been deciphered, but may be something as
simple as a book on Texting for Fun and Profit. Regardless,
written messages were portable and could be carried long distances on
foot, horseback, by camel, boat, raft, etc., whatever conveyance was
available in the day. Written words could also be stored and reread
later, providing greater accuracy than oral histories. New employment
opportunities arose and careers as scribes in local monasteries were
plentiful. Sadly, in 1440 the Guggenheim printing press caused a
tremendous reduction in force. Luckily, some scribes were retrained
as copy boys. Legend has it that others reveled in their freedom from
the dimly lit copy rooms and became editors, agents and publishers.
The literary works
of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the resulting Tarzan movies taught us
about drums passing messages through the jungle. The usual message,
translated by the village chief, was, “Okay, B’wana, mo’ better
you go home now!” The drums repeated the messages in case you
missed a beat or the drum tattoo was in the foreign language of
another tribe. “Boom! Boom! Baboom!”—meaning, “Having party,
bring food,” in one language, being translated as “Boom! Boom!
Bababoom,” meaning, “Having party. Outsiders welcome for dinner.”
The practice of drum messaging ceased when pirates began stealing
drummer identities and sending fake dinner inviations.
Messages conveyed by smoke signals were limited to a small vocabulary
and didn’t work well in the rain. Distances stretching beyond the
horizon required repeating stations, which raised the cost of
messages, most of which were, “White man come! Quick! Hide squaws!”
In rather rapid succession, the invention of numerous electrical
devices improved the speed and movement of messages until they
crossed not only continents, but oceans.
The partnership of William Cooke and Professor Charles Wheatstone
patented the electrical telegraph in May, 1837. Samuel F. B. Morse
developed a universally accepted cipher allowing transmission of
messages over great distances. Perhaps Western Union’s success
inspired Ida Emerson and Joseph Howard to pen, “send me a kiss by
wire,” in their song Hello My Baby.
On May 24, 1844,
Morse telegraphed the famous words, "What hath God wrought?"
from the
B & O Mount
Clare Station in Baltimore, Maryland, to the Capitol Building in
Washington. Wire soon crossed the continent from the east coast to
the west and electrical signals conveyed messages with greater speed
over greater distances than ever before. The railroads and the Army
prized telegraph key operators with not only exceptional speed and
accuracy, but good singing voices as well..
Although founded in
1851, in 1856 The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph
Company became the Western Union Telegraph Company. A good thing, I
say.
From April, 1860, to October, 1861, the Pony Express carried mail
between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, with
coast-to-coast delivery in about 10 days. The short time the Pony
Express riders plied the mail routes is blamed on the ponies, which
formed the first postal union and demanded larger feedbags, gourmet
oats, sunbonnets and pensions which guaranteed them green pastures.
Their demands brought immediate dismissal. Their replacements were
horses of a different color.
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his new invention with
the words, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” The
following day, his wife Eliza, who was deaf, smacked Alex alongside
the head and insisted that he invent something she could use.
His mother, Ma Bell, also deaf, smacked him too, and the following
year organized the Bell Telephone system and installed herself as
CEO. Ironically, Bell would not allow a telephone in his study
because it interfered with his work. (He knew this as early as 1876?
The man was a genius!)
In 1893, the father
of wireless telegraphy Nikola Tesla was awarded a patent for his
wireless telegraph. This allowed ships at sea to receive news and
weather forecasts. An enterprising ship’s radioman used his skills
to transmit the first porn. His arresting officer misunderstood,
however, and cited him for using the Worse code. Thirty-seven years
later, “Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at
sea,” became the signature lead-in for radio newscaster Walter
Winchell.
In 1897, the father of radio Guglielmo Marconi began broadcasting
audio signals and radio was born. However, it was Reginald Fessenden
whose inventions finally brought us audio broadcasting using
amplitude modulation. That’s AM radio. They’re still talking
about it. However, AM radio is subject to static produced over
thirteen billion years ago by the big bang. This static hissing sound
is audible between stations when tuning across the broadcast
spectrum. FM, or frequency modulated radio, followed on January 1,
1941. Noise is effectively eliminated from FM broadcasts thus
improving the fidelity of any sounds broadcast
More recently came
the Internet followed by e-mail. The younger generation did not
readily accept e-mail, perhaps because the origin of each e-mail is
traceable. Instead, they use the AOL instant Messenger technology to
send and receive instant text messages on mobile platforms, the true
purpose of which is to irritate mom, dad, grandma and grandpa by
rudely texting at the supper table. Texting has become the preferred
method of communication for teens and young adults. Rather than
actually speak to one another (heaven forbid!), even those within
whispering distance of each other prefer texting.
More recently,
WebCams have brought interactive video to the masses, allowing Skype
subscribers to watch as they text each other.
As for smacking someone alongside the head, the tradition continues
on television where on Tuesday nights we can watch NCIS Special Agent
Leroy Jethro Gibbs smack Senior Field Agent Anthony DiNozzo alongside
his head for—well, for almost anything.
Humans have spent
millennia perfecting technologies that allow expansion of our range
of communication over distances to peoples far beyond the horizon.
The Voyager 1 space probe, launched September 5, 1977, is now over 10
billion miles from the sun and the ones and zeros of digital
communications from the probe take some 14 hours to reach Earth, even
at the speed of light. I hope they packed a toothbrush and a change
of underwear for the brave and lonely little traveler.
The continuing
development of communication devices has resulted in bringing people
closer and closer together into larger and larger social media groups
of “friends.” But, instead of becoming more cohesive,
linguistically homogenous societies, we appear to be degrading not
only our linguistic abilities, but our evolution as socially adept
beings. Many “friends” lie about their age and sex, and post
fictitious biographies with beguiling photographs, without which we
would never have any interest in these people as friends.
Text messaging, with
its inherent 140 character limitation, has led to monosyllabic
conversations which often contain character-saving homonyms, acronyms
and single-character emoticons—
resulting in the dumbing down of our language and our citizens.
This dumbing down
has been borne out by numerous studies.
"Summarizing
several studies done in the United States and Canada, the average
reading skill level was estimated to be at around the 8th to 9th
grade (University of Utah Health Sciences Center). However, this same
study found that about one in five adults had a reading skill level
at the 5th grade level or below."
http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/jun02.asp
That's
20% of our population, 60 million people. And we worry about
producing more graduates with strong math and science skills?
Shouldn't everyone learn to read first?
“But it's interesting to note that:
many
newspapers and magazines are written to a 9th grade level;
USA
Today, New York Times, and the New Yorker are written to a 10th
grade level;
The
Times of India is the least readable, at a 15th grade level.
Authors
John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and Clive
Cussler and many others write at a 7th grade level;
Romance
novels are often written at a 5th grade level”
http://www.impact-information.com/impactinfo/newsletter/plwork15.htm
Our slide towards
social ineptness began decades ago, perhaps even farther back. Long
before the advent of the printing press, social gatherings around the
campfire were the venue for storytelling, orally passing on the clan
or tribal legends and history—
interactive social media. Books and literacy opened doors that
stretched far from one's campfire. But reading books and letters made
communication a one-way street between the writer and the reader—no
vocal social interaction. Learning new subjects or experiencing the
pleasure of fantasy could come from books without the much-enjoyed
intercourse with a teacher.
The one-way
communication of movies, radio, television, CDs and DVDs only serves
to accelerate the loss of social interaction. Note here that in the
early days of radio, the 1920s, '30s, '40s and even the early '50s,
dances were popular social events and the music was often broadcast;
it was an era of bands playing live music and couples at the dance
enjoyed the touch and feel of true social interaction. Television
continued this tradition of music and dancers with shows like
American Bandstand, but on
radio and TV, it was not social interaction for anyone listening or
watching.
The recording of
sound on cylinders by Thomas Alva Edison brought music-on-demand into
the homes of those who hand-cranked their machines to wind the spring
driven motor. Recorded disks replaced cylinders and electric
turntable motors replaced spring motors. Analog recording media
rapidly progressed from vinyl disks to eight-track tapes to tape
cassettes before being replaced by digital compact disks, iPods and
MP3 players where digital recordings permit small, batterty-powered,
portable devices to store and playback hundreds, even thousands, of
songs or recorded audio books. The now ubiquitous ear buds subdue
real world sounds and provide a high-quality, stereo, individual
listening experience that
inhibits the effectiveness of attempts at conversation. Any attempts
to engage in a two-way conversation must be preceded by an
attention-getting smack on the back of the head.
Meanwhile, storage
media has matured and migrated to password-protected digital storage
devices somewhere in cyberspace called “The Cloud.”
Succeeding
generations of dancing American youths built upon the popularity of
the Charleston, then the Lindy Hop, the Jitterbug, the Twist, which
sired a multitude of new dances, the progeny of rock and roll. As
the rhythm of the dances increased, it became more difficult to hang
on to the hand of a dancing partner. With each generation the
participants moved farther from their partners or danced without
partners at all. Today's youth gyrate their hips and wave their arms
in a scenario that seems to say, “Look at me. I'm sooo desirable!
I'm yours. Take me!” But it seems to only be a flamboyant gesture
of courtship, much as a number of species of birds undertake in their
mating rituals—except
that touching and any resultant mutual physical arousal or
satisfaction doesn't seem to be the point at all. What each
individual takes from these dances is secreted in the minds of the
participants. Perhaps that's better than a slap on the back of the
head for getting too touchy-feely or worse, pregnant.
Using television as
a baby sitter cannot be faulted as an excuse for lack of social
skills for children sired in the '30s or '40s. But beginning with
those born in the '50s, the one-way TV communication phenomenon
swept through America like a cyclone as Howdy Doody, Captain
Kangaroo, Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop, Deputy Dawg, Huckleberry Hound,
Yogi Bear and the many Hanna Barbera creations mesmerized an entire
generation of children with one-way communication. Over the years,
their viewership grew to tens of millions of children.
Earlier generations
of children passed notes behind their teacher's backs, wrote crib
notes on the palms of their hands, on the cuffs of long-sleeved
shirts or the hems of dresses. Today's youth pass their secret notes
as they do with most of their social networking: via text messages.
No one knows what they are texting nor whom they are texting. It is
the height of social secrecy. But at least it's sociable (two-way)
communication, if one wishes to overlook the the 140 character
limitation of messages, the teen acronyms and emoticons, all invented
to further encrypt the meaning of their messages.
Children raised in
the one-way communication era brought on by long hours of mental
suckling at the teat of the aptly-named boob-tube, do not learn to
express themselves well in social situations, perhaps because they
have not been required to express or share their thoughts or
emotions. For one thing, television drones on without providing an
opportunity or even the necessity to think or to reply, thus not
stimulating any need to communicate one's thoughts or feelings at
all.
Let's face it. Our
kids are sneaky, secretive and socially inept. How do we correct
these obvious faults? Sneakiness: Children must illustrate
adherence to an acceptable set of ethical motives before being handed
a device that promotes secrecy in communication. Secretiveness:
Limit children's use of texting as their primary means of
communication and prohibit underage acceptance into social media
sites such as Face- book. Social ineptitude: Most of our youths
are not anti-social; they merely lack social skills. Role models.
Parents must become involved to reverse current trends before they
are passed along to their grandchildren. But as teachers of proper
social interaction, the grandparents have already failed once. With
5th grade reading levels, are they up to the task?
The solution to all
these ills is parenting. Parental controls such as passwords for
access to specific programming is not the solution. Controlling
television viewing time is paramount. Adult supervised interaction
with siblings or play dates with peers provide far more success in
learning social skills.
Is it possible
these same problems are responsible for the failure of so many
marriages—over 50%?
Inability or lack of willingness to share or to compromise are
certainly contributors to this social phenomenon. And lack of
knowledge about how to debate an issue without the discussion
becoming personal and threatening further worsens the chances of
finding a mutually agreeable solution. Secrecy in communications has
attained “must have” status. Today's youth do not subscribe to
any reasonable code of ethics or standards. TV images and sound bytes
tell us how to vote, what to believe, where to spend our money and
what products and services to purchase.
Perhaps we're not so
different from the shaman or chief telling stories around a campfire.
But TV is not interactive and is far more mesmerizing and insidious.
And who is going to turn it off? The parents? The children? Don't
count on it.
I don't want someone
to talk to me. I want someone to talk with.
