Scottish Country Dance of the Day

On March 10, 1876 three days after his patent for the telephone was approved, Alexander Graham Bell spoke the first words by telephone to his assistant. “Mr.Watson, come here! I want to see you!”

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Born March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Bell was an instructor at a boys’ boarding school. The sounds of speech were an integral part of his life. His father developed a “Visible Speech” system for deaf students to communicate. Bell would later become friend and benefactor of Helen Keller.

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Bell Telephone Company – named after Alexander Graham Bell – was established in 1878 is now known as American Telephone and Telegraph, or AT&T.

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The first cell phone dates back to post-World War II America.  In 1947, researchers began theorizing that a mobile telephone was possible. They experimented with installing telephones in vehicles. Scientists realized that by using small ranges of service areas while reusing frequency, they could be able to significantly increase the traffic capacity of mobile phones.

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It would take about 40 years before the world’s first commercially-available mobile phone, the Motorola DynaTAC, was released. The phone weighed 1.75 pounds, had 30 minutes of talk time, and cost $3,995.

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Besides changing all aspects of life as the cell phone evolved from a communication only to device which links you to all aspects of the modern online experience, the cell phone has even given rise to new art forms and new social and psychological behaviors and phenomena.

 

The cell phone novel, or mobile phone novel  is a literary work originally written on a cellular phone via text messaging. This type of literature originated in Japan, where it has become a popular literary genre. However, its popularity has also spread to other countries internationally, especially to China, United States, Germany, and South Africa. Chapters usually consist of about 70-100 words each due to character limitations on cell phones.

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Despite the use of cell phones, most of these novels are not written with SMS slang and language. Instead, readers experience narration, poetry and even a form of visual art in the use of carefully chosen line breaks, punctuation, rhythm and white space.

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Often, cell phone novels feature the use of fragments, simple and delicate conversational language; cliffhangers and dramatic dialogue emphasized by the unseen or omitted, allowing deeper meanings and personal interpretation.   Dramatic and drastic plots takes readers through twists and turns, and cliffhangers, similar to the serial stories in magazines in the past.

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And because people are so very physically and psychologically attached to their phones, they may experience the newer "phantom cell phone" phenomenon, similar to the "phantom limb" syndrome.  If you have you ever felt the vibration of a text message coming in on your phone and you reach for your pocket only to find that your phone is on the table beside you, or if you randomly hear your ringtone going off only to find your phone on silence, you may be one of the millions of people experiencing this brain-synthesized phenomenon, triggered by unconscious stimuli.

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Do you still have your old cell phones?  Some of these have become serious collector's items.  Click the rare vintage cell phones to learn more.

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Ring, ring!