A recent faux pas on a social media set me to thinking about why I participate in it. I began thinking about the history of communication and how it has changed in my lifetime but especially in my mother’s lifetime.
Centuries ago, only the wealthy could communicate over long distances. They had the means and the literacy skills (or knew those who had them) necessary to make their wants and needs known. But common people did not.
Then, with the invention of the postage stamp in England, communication was more affordable but literacy was still a barrier. To write a letter, one had to find a scribe and the recipient had to find someone to read for them. When family and friends emigrated to another continent, communication occurred rarely or not at all. I cannot imagine what my Irish and English ancestors went through at parting.
Even with postal service in the U.S. and Canada, western expansion meant that living in a remote area cut communication down to a few times a year at best until the railways connected the coast lines. And still today in developing countries, literacy and communication barriers exist.
In my mother’s lifetime, literacy was more universal. Mail was common. Indeed my grandmother and her closest sister wrote to each other every week after the sister moved to Vermont. I wish they had kept those letters; I would love reading them today.
The telephone was the next form of communication that changed everything. Mother received a transoceanic call on her wedding day from her favorite cousin stationed with the Army Air Force in Japan, an occasion in itself.
Even in my life, when I moved away from my family and the phone was then “long distance,” communication was made more difficult and expensive. That seems laughable now with the advent of cell phone service with free nights and weekends and text messaging at any time, day or night.
As I thought about all this, I realized how grateful I am for the myriad of ways I keep in touch with family and friends, not just far away but close by. Even with changes in schedules, changes in church membership, different affiliations with volunteer opportunities, I still keep family and friends near via social media and my cell phone. So different from when my mother and I only talked about every three weeks due to the expense of long distance phone calls. I still shake my head in amazement. I could talk to her now daily if I chose to do so.
Indeed, I find I have to limit how much time I spend on social media; it can overwhelm my day if I let it. And earlier today, phone calls to two friends totaled more than an hour, allowable only because it’s the weekend.
I thank God that I don’t have to feel isolated because of all the ways I have to stay connected with people I care about. Knowing what’s going on in the lives of people I love makes a world of difference for someone whose life is in words.