We Never Had It So Good
We have never had it so good in keeping in touch with friends, especially when you’re deaf and unable to use the telephone.
1988 to year 2000 (picked 1988 as I was 18 then)
In the past, we all met at deaf clubs. We had to remember or write down where we would meet next in pubs and the likes..
We also could keep in contact via the post, but I hardly ever wrote a letter, apart from sending birthday cards.
When I was living at home and I needed to contact my friend, I had to ask my mum to ring my friend’s mum to find out the date or time to meet, then our mums would be chatting for ages talking about the weather and gawd knows what. A call that should last 5 min ended up being an hour!
Then Typetalk came along, but not all of us had Typetalk. (I got it for free, because I was working.) However, my male friends were lazy, and they were quite happy for their mums to do all the phone calls etc. And when I did use Typetalk, my parents could hear someone at the other end saying,
“Hello, hello? Who is it? Maureen, it sounds like a fax machine. I will hang up as we can’t talk to a fax machine. We haven’t got a fax machine, have we?….”
Pagers came along, and what an excellent device it was. The only downside at that time was that you had to ring and leave a message and then relay it onto a pager.
I had software where you could type in a message on your home pc. The modem would dial the pager’s server and leave the message. The only trouble was, at that time, none of my friends had a pager and my mum only used it to tell me that dinner was on the table!!
Then, along came mobile phones. Most of my friends took a long time to get a mobile. It was great to get in contact via sms, but it took a long time coming. I don’t need to tell you how useful this device was and still is today.
Between 1988 and now, the PC came along. Now I don’t need to tell you how useful it is, do I?
Today - 2007
Just to remind you that I have taken names from the Deaf-uk-chat mailing list. I don’t know where they live ( I could have asked, but then I’d never get this blog written) so I have inserted some random area .
I announced on Deaf-uk-chat that we meet in Chester in a pub. Name of street and postcode of pub provided for sat-nav users.
Alison is leaving London with Kyle after staying with some friends.
Rob, who was in area, got his mobile out and texted “ping me” using buddyping that he found on his mobile. Alison and Kyle were nearby, and he asked for a lift to save train fare.
After travelling so far, they decided to have a break and found a pub. Meanwhile, in another car, Nellie and Pauline requested a message from their TomTom sat-nav to see how far others travelled and discovered that Alison Jen were nearby and that Rob was in the pub. Their TomTom directed them to the pub so that they could join them..
(This is very useful if you are in a convoy of cars and you don’t want to lose each other.)
Meanwhile, Tony flew from Aussie land and had sent a message through Twitter on his laptop that he will be at the Manchester airport and will be taking a train to Chester.
Jones responded on his mobile via text to twitter that he is in area and tells him not to waste money on train fare, because he is in the area and can pick him up.
I text onto twitter that there is change of venue and that the pub can be found within the roman walls…..and so on, As you can see, be it mobiles or laptops, we are able to never lose touch with each other
So why aren’t us deafies using all the software that’s provided on the internet??
I have only tested Buddyping with Kyle, and so few of us are using twitter. Why are people afraid to test things out??
Oh, and if you want to know how the story ends …
We all arrive at the pub having a good time and MM was sitting at the bar only drinking coke thinking that there is some conspiracy going on regarding the change of venue and watching anyone walking in the pub with a longbow.
Charlotte asked why MM looked worried, to which I replied,
“Apparently it’s legal to kill a Welshman within the roman walls with a longbow.”
At that point, Tony’s eyes lit up……
As a Roman descendent, I’d like to apologize for the abysmal attitude of my ancestors.
Ymddiheuro, ddrwg gen i!
Is there an interpreter in the room ?
MM
I agree. Technology is very much improved especially since 2000. I was an early adapter of PDA’s (personal Digital Assistants) my very first one was an Ipaq and weighed a brick but it was advanced for it’s time with snazzy things like Microsoft Word on it and MSN Messenger! Of course you had to line up your infrared port of your phone to the infrared port of the PDA in order to get online! Now we are witnesseing an explosion in smartphone technology. I still use a PDA which also acts a mobile phone. I can receive text messages, chat on msn messenger, use bluetooth to send a word document to a friend who has a similar phone. The pda i currently use is an o2 XDA Exec. I thoroughly recommend it as a mobile device for deaf people to use! The next decade looks to be very exciting indeed with the advance in personal communication which can only be a good thing for deaf people in general!
Yes Fin, but you gotta remember the culturists and the so called Deaf almost derailed this technological progress by their insistence on BSL communications only. If they weren’t so stubborn, people would be enjoying wide access instead of the narrow range of options we have now!
I agree.
Gasp!!!
MM agrees
::fainted:::
The problem with technology at this moment in time is its proliferation. The fact that you lot need to use so many different means to keep in touch is a case in point.
Give it about 15 years, and then tell us we’ve never had it so good… things will settle down.
I think MM had the right idea to just sit in the pub and wait for people to turn up
Ah Fintan, You could have saved time for Tony, as Manchester Airport is only a few miles away from me, so Nellie and myself could have picked him up, rather than him go straight to Chester on the train!:-)
Remember also, that buddyping doesn’t support all networks yet, but we can live in hope.
It’s important not to waste valuable drinking time on pointless e-sites, gizmos, mobiles, and pointless and inane “mt u at pb ya…. “, etc, I find
Drinking is a serious business, you’re obviously an amateur… drink WKD or something equally ridiculous with a straw in it.