Isaac Asimov wrote of a society which had become so isolated
from itself that the only people who had direct physical contact with each
other were married couples. All interactions were performed by ‘viewing’, a
holographic projection of the participators in a conversation being present
giving the illusion of a real presence.
This sort of thing has appeared in all sorts of science
fiction for years, but as with so many of these ‘inventions’ it was Asimov and
others among his peers who first came up with the idea. It wasn’t so much the
technology, though, as the social implications and the language surrounding the
technology that he wrote about, understood even, with the most precision and
detail.
The reason I mention this is because of the use of Skype, which
enables me to regularly ‘see’ and talk with my parents in Somerset, or Sarah’s
father in Portishead, in an almost natural way, much as if we were sat in the
same room. It feels very much like meeting up and conversations run in a much
more natural way than they would on a long distance phone call, involving
everyone present with sometimes chaotic results. The boys, in particular, have
taken well to the concept but have also injected a generous amount of anarchy
into the proceedings.
Hanging up is particularly difficult, and no-one really
likes pressing the button to close the conversation, and this brings me neatly
back to the point. Asimov wrote about a society in which the inhabitants of a
single planet were limited to very low numbers living on huge estates spread
over vast distances necessitating the form of communication mentioned. The
vocabulary which was used was a familiar one which was adapted, so that they
spoke, for example, of seeing each other although actual physical presence was
not involved.
I just wrote of ‘hanging up’, a phrase which is beginning to
lose it’s meaning with telephones in general and has absolutely no meaning at
all if you consider either Skype or even a mobile phone. I also used the term
‘pressing the button’ and we use this constantly with computers when we are
using a mouse to click on an icon, which is often even shaded to look like a 3D
button, to perform an action. These changes in the use of language are
interesting in themselves, or they are to me anyway, but the one to which I
alluded earlier is more than just a question of language. The fact is that I
can see my parents, have them in the
same room as me, and have a conversation which involves everyone in the room(s)
with all that entails even down to the chaos. This is a change brought by the
evolution of technology which affects so much more than just language.
When we say ‘see you soon’ in normal conversation we have
always meant more than just seeing someone, we imply the physical presence of
the person. This is because the language involved has developed over time and
until very recently the possibility of seeing someone without their being with you did not exist. Now when I say ‘speak
soon’ to my parents, because that was what are used to saying on the phone I
mean ‘see you soon’ because that is how it feels. It’s still not quite the same
as being in the same room, but it’s so much closer.
So thank you Skype, for making the conversations possible,
and thank you Isaac Asimov for giving me the vocabulary to think about this and
helping me to not take it for granted.
