The words we use matter – allot! In my hypnosis training, its never been so clear that the view you and I see is created in the minds eye. What the mind sees is evidence in the use of language! The memory center of the brain, the hippocampus, using recall of letters – icons if you will – begins the process of words. Words, create all that the human mind “sees!”
This section of the TalkifUwant website was originally developed in circa (ca) 2002-2004 (and updated a few time since). What we see, is what we think!
The intention of a “communication” platform (this article) is to take a look at the way humans have moved through “talk” from ages of old, to modern day. Communication and technology, while ever changing in many respects, is a reflection of everything that “we” see. From the first etchings on the walls of caves, man’s ability to express intellect (the views of a past and the visions of a future) is largely hidden in those little drawings that we call words (a letter, for example, is simply an icon).
Animated GIFS were once cutting edge. Look close – it’s in there!
This “communication” page itself beginning on the web in 2002, has been updated as recently as 2012 and again in 2018, is an evolving work. Here the reader can give some thought – to how it is – “this” all came to be! Maybe this page will offer a few insights and view points that are largely qualitative in nature, centered around what has changed, what has stayed the same, and what happens to a generation consumed by huge amounts of information every day. It’s tempting to just say that “there’s the good, the bad and the …” (ugly, right?) – when more simply put—it just begins with diagrams, plans, drawings, letters —and WORDS.
As you skim the communication commentary, you’ll find some text book references and a few links that elaborate on or support various points that are made (some have changed due to platform advancements, and those good ole’ “page 404 error” messages that add to the conundrum of digital stress. Please use the links that are posted throughout the site—information is everywhere on the web involving communication and technology. Here you will find a glimpse of what other sites have to offer—and some of tidbits and historical blurbs along the way might just be a bit fun!
It may no longer (in 2012 at the last update here) seem a bit odd to find hard copy textbook references on a web site; but in 2002 when this communications page was originally developed—it wasn’t so very common. If that surprises you, there’s “virtual talk” (what you’re reading now) of cave men and pencils (some things never really have to change)! Sure, some of this “stuff” can seem out of date (and I’m sure you’ll hit a few dead links along the way—just the kind that the author imagines serve to aggravate the guru’s of Google and Bing in their incredulous spider grabbing efforts); “dead links” – think about what even those two words might have meant in 1980. Given that communication has reached an awesome level in its ability to be shared and passed from one person to the next (digital mental health counseling services were unheard of in 2004) – who knows what’s next? Wireless printers, Bluetooth, and “the cloud” (searcy Microsoft’s SkyDrive as one example). Even so, traditional text books (you may want to go to your local library and check one out) and pencils (you still use them, don’t you?) have a place of permanence in the study of communication (the new library branches of Leon County tell yet another simultaneous—current and repetitive—old kind of story; books are still on the shelf—that’s one story).
But don’t worry, we’re not stuck in the dark ages here either. If you’re content to have the world of information at your fingertips, we think you’ll enjoy the benefits of checking out books via an electronic library found at the service that used to be (ca. 2004-2011) known as Net Library (anyone remember when THAT was cool?) (now converted to EBSCOhost). E-books are a wonderful place to get electronic books (both in and out of print), and you can “check out” a book in the E-book format without leaving your virtual access point (the good ole’ PC / Mac). As you already know DROID, Mac, Iphones, tablets, EBook Readers, and other little “goodies” are all about us. Hot spots used to be those warm things we experienced on sunny days (or maybe it was when “hottie” was near)…..today (ca. 2010-2012) hotspots are the ways we all get to the web using a cell phone! In 2018 it’s way past bluetooth, and its onto wi-fi direct, mirroring and artificial intelligence.
Samuel Colt’s prototype of the six shooter was first a simple wood carving.
In 1836 Samuel Colt’s six shooter, the first revolver in history, failed to impress his contemporaries? Maybe part of that is because if you look, his prototype is made out of wood. It’s reported that Colt went bankrupt in 1842 at the age of 28. But he strikes it rich in 1846 when the War Department places its first major order during the Mexican War (See the history of Sam Colt to learn more).
One day soon, I gamble a person seeking mental health services will sit in the lobby using the supplied tablet, answering a series of questions that collectively compare answers, guiding a person to the next reasonable set of questions, eventually comparing them to all the possible disorders in the DSM. From there, a databank cross checked in real time, will conclude very quickly what one or two possibilities are left for client and therapist to work out – as to “what might be wrong.” At some point too, when mental health science reaches a hard science level (neuro-science and the human genome project are making this more and more a reality everyday), the AI data will take the clients answers, the possible diagnoses’ and send recommended treatment interventions to the practitioner. AI already solves the rubics cube – the data points there can be multiplied easy enough for AI diagnosis, AI treatment – while allowing the therapist and the client to focus more quickly on getting better! Linking nutrition, sleep hygiene, exercise, medication options, talk therapy methods, and life style changes – in an AI encounter seems kind of cool.
Alexander Bain, in 1843, first proposed the idea of using a facsimile transmission, but even more interesting is that in 1921 the company Western Union transmitted the first “wirephoto.” In 2004 the wirephoto link was a neat “find” — now it’s all showing up in Wikipedia!
Wire transmission of photographs would later (in 1935) be picked up by such companies as the Associated Press where single photos would be simultaneously wired to different newspapers.
Tweets, blogs, social networks, TV online, and YouTube” — it’s a busy and an amazing world. Facebook numbers something like 500 million users (that’s a greater number than every living human in the US, given the 2010 census).. Think about this: we have more FB users than owners of a refrigerator! Instagram, Tumblr, Bumble, SnapChat, Video calls — it’s all a thing! Today full private mental health practices are up and running – online!
In any case, when it comes to communication and technology, this review of the literature (and it was outdated in 2004, 2006, 2010 and in 2012) suggests that both have been around for as long as people have been around. Even while the word technology is a modern term, it applies to humankind’s ability to foster new and better ways to communicate in every generation. In the 1940’s hypnosis emerged as a concept largely based upon a key ingredient: the use of language to alter the mind’s eye. But technology and communication is not without growing pains, as you’ll find out while “surfing” a bit here.
This handheld was a big big deal – before QWERTY showed up on a cell phone even!
Enjoy the “talk” (if u want) site, particularly this summary of communication history. As a talk therapist, as hypnotherapist, it’s kind of big deal. The words people use – matter.
If you have comments, suggestions, or just wish to communicate, please contact me by using the links found on each page – I’ll get back to you, digitally, as fast as I can. And when it seems best – a good ole’ face to face meeting might still be in order! Oh, and thanks for stopping by.
On July 3, 2019, now that’s recent, Katherine Roth of the Associated Press writes about how the younger generation is increasingly returning to the TYPE WRITER! Remember those? My first typewriter was manual – and here Roth talks about the manual typewriter shops of America are booming as younger folks find favor in the clicks and the clacks of die cast arms with letters on them, pushed to the paper with good ole’ finger and hand pressure – and NOTHING powered by electric at all! Read the Associated Press article here ….
Communication has been around since the beginning of time, no doubt. From the grunts of cavemen to the pictorials on the walls of caves, to the frescoes of ancient European castles people have attempted to convey messages to each other; Using numerous means to communicate human kind has been creative from ancient and modern eras. The process has certainly been evolutionary.
Modern communication, while consumed by literature, journalism and the common writings of the multitudes, still utilizes much of the iconography that can be dated back to 1,300 years ago. Some of the earliest icons are said to have appeared in a monastery around 726 A.D. (at least according to this no longer working “dead link” from ca. 2002-2004 ==> www.icons.org.uk paragraph 6). The point is arguable considering that the very use of the word “iconography” can now be applied to prehistoric depictions (see Iconography at encylopedia.com).
Greek art depicts many human forms to high light the strength, courage, and veracity of athletes, gods, and goddesses. Often times a simple figure imposed upon a vase, for example, tells a complete story. Likewise today’s use of pictures perpetuates communication by icon. And while these one picture stories, messages, and even instructions take time to produce, as in artwork and design, once created the picture tells the viewer a wide range of messages. Humans have long exerted great energies into the telling of lengthy messages with as few a words as possible. Nevertheless, getting a message across to an audience very quickly is not a new goal.
But communication is no longer limited by time and neither is it so labor intensive. Graphics and artwork can be easily created using sophisticated computer applications; icons can be quickly generated using minimal effort and creativity—as is the case with the simple men and women icons that hang on the bathroom doors of public and private buildings.
“From a sterile, air conditioned command bunker hundreds or even thousands of miles from the actual battle zone…” we might very well bitterly hate an abstract enemy we will never see “…except perhaps as a ghostly signature on a video display screen…clearly ready for battle.” –The High Cost of High Tech by Lenny Siegel & John Markoff (1985)
And with the manifestation of the telephone, electronic media, and the internet the spoken and written word can travel thousands of miles in nanoseconds. Almost just as quickly, pictures, graphics, video and a multitude of images can be sent and received. In 2012 the words “synchronous” and “asynchronous” were hardly known (and still many wonder “what the hell does THAT mean?”). Huge amounts of graphics can be found all over the internet—many are free! With fewer words, more pictures, and hi-speed transmission hundreds of thousands of messages are conveyed everywhere in an information age. Recorded video and fully functional presentations are online now and ready when users are (see a simple example here at talkifuwant – video here and also an example of online power point presentation examples)
For years it was believed that mental health counseling could only be offered face to face; eventually the idea of tele-counseling took shape. In February 2012, in just one example, mental health counseling services can be accessed via live synchronous web video, instant chat, and encrypted user to therapist messages. Scheduling of appointments 24 hours a day, voice recorded call reminders with accurate date and times, and text messages—all set up in a self services digital platform! Providers who wish to move to the digital private practice era, can learn more here!
“Thomas Jefferson advanced the concept of libraries and the right to check out a book free of charge. But this great forefather probably never considered the likelihood that 20 million people might access a digital library electronically and withdraw its contents at no cost.” Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte (1995)
Imagine what it must have been like when people first started using the pencil. A primitive innovation by today’s standards, but an invention such as the pencil would have meant that pen and ink (repetitive dipping of feather into ink bowl) were no longer required to write! It was a technological advancement that would save time, speed written composition and advance communication by leap years (this is starting to sound like the computer age almost!) The pencil is surely not so exciting today, that’s for sure, but it’s evolution had to be an exciting moment in what one author, Dennis Baron, has coined “literacy technology” (in From Pencils to Pixels).
In fact, it would seem that no matter what the literacy technology has been or is, there are stages that are universal. At first the latest development is in a “restricted communication function”, with limited availability due to high cost, lack of interest and/or lack of an awareness that a new technology has even been made. The next phase of development is to “mediate the technology for the general public.” That is to say that gradually the literacy technology is more affordable and is found to have common ground with its predecessor. Finally, the technology not only imitates older technology, but it actually is seen as having new methodologies for expanded communication possibilities.
“When we write with cutting-edge tools, it is easy to forget that whether it consists of energized particles on a screen or ink embedded in paper or lines gouged into clay tablets, writing itself is always first and foremost a technology, a way of engineering materials in order to accomplish an end. Tied up as it is with value-laden notions of literacy, art, and science, of history and psychology, of education, of theory, and of practicality, we often lose sight of writing as technology, until, that is, a new technology like the computer comes along and we are thrown into excitement and confusion as we try it on, try it out, reject it, and then adapt it to our lives—and of course, adapt our lives to it” Dennis Baron.
Excitement abut technology can present problems, no matter how adaptive we are to its presentation. Some studies (no longer posted here due to unavailable content and subsequent findings) have suggested that a new technology can prevent, or at least slow down overall learning. In the school setting , for example, where computers are estimated to enhance the learning curve, there exists the learning of the technology versus the learning of actual content. Because time and energy are attributed to using a new technology, the technology learning hinders the ability learn the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. To be clear, digital technology also brings teachers into the homes of homeward bound students – remotely in both real time and asynchronous feeds!
In more recent psychological and clinical social work perspectives, technological stress is now a real thing. Tech stress must be factored into everyone’s mental health at all ages. How? Blue light exposure affects sleep. Excessive exposure to digital screens, as in hours a day, is correlated to mental illness symptoms (primarily in studies with minors) such as bipolar and anxiety. Sitting hours at a time is correlated to colorectal cancer. LED light, now more advanced than ever is increasingly powerful – and beautiful. HD and Super HD are able to generate images and videos on a screen that when placed next to the actual site (say a screen view of a creek and then the screen view at the same creek sitting ‘side by side’) appear to have more color, more vividness — it’s as if the “virtual reality” has passed up even reality itself. The future question remains, at least in 2018 anyway, what affect, if any, will this kind of enhanced digital imagery, this enhanced view of reality have on a mind and a brain?
In 1776 the first submarine was invented, called the “American Turtle,” and was unsuccessfully used during the Revolutionary War.
“In 1750 the age of electrical innovation begins, when Benjamin Franklin struck it lucky with the lighting rod. And in 1776, an historical time for America, the first submarine was invented. In 1814 the first cast-iron replaceable tip is fitted to a farmers plough, and in 1939 the first digital computer begins to take shape. In 1964 IBM mass produces it’s OS/360 that could run any software program, and Digital Equipment sells the minicomputer with a “low $18,000 price tag” in 1965! Just ten years later, Microsoft is born and Bill Gates drops out of Harvard to write computer software and in 1982 Time Magazine calls its “Man of The Year” the PC. (Neat stuff, huh? For more timeline tidbits, and video library search options have a look at a video at PBS discussing Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison’s introduction of the Telephone. Searching the site is easy with the “search bar” – and by the way, there was a time when the words “search bar” would have been anything but a way to find stuff on a ‘page.’)”
Other studies indicate that once technology and content learning are integrated both (adapting to the technology itself and then learning in the technological context/environment) can be accomplished. The technology is mastered, or at least better applied, and the content takes its rightful place in the process of education. Ultimately content learning emerges, once the excitement of the technology slows, as richer, more interesting, and more extensively research based. An interesting finding was that in order for integration of technology and content to occur more personal involvement was a key factor. All in all it’s a balancing act for students and teachers alike that will need further study. Other places, easily found on the web hi-light all of what is good in a digital age.
TalkifUwant has been working with Onsite Remote Digital Overlay Services and Onsite School Counseling Services Programs for years. Today services are limited to professional development and onsite implementation services.
The computer age has introduced us to a new vocabulary. Words like interface, modem, on-line, access, hardware, and software have become entrenched in our vocabulary and our thinking. But in a perverse way, the computer has also exposed us to an older language—that of printing. Words like font, point size, pica, sans-serif, and leading…have become mainstream.” Information Anxiety by Richard Saul Wurman (1989) And in 2018, it’s just really “old news!”
Words have emerged with emerging technology – requiring the lexicon to change and to be enhanced. Emoticons, walls, firewalls, virus, share, like, hashtag and follow — are all just a few examples of changing words in changing times. Digi-mental health, encryption, secure communications – EHR and on and on the list of new and emerging language can be exemplified. Its growth is a part of the communication evolution and it continues to thrive. And while the news media is, in 2018 anyway, in full swing with feeds across the bottom of their screens, web aggregators and RSS feeds have been around since 2002.
Entire entities have emerged with online college degrees, new laws and rules and standards covering credit card usage, storage of medical records, online treatment and text therapy are catching up, yet still behind the digital surge. “Venmo me” and the “black web” are telling terms to what’s here and what is yet to come.
Emoticons? Widgets? Open Source? Tweets? Social Media? Web Conferencing? LOL and OMG? An “App for that”? Web Based Telephones? Voice Command Devices? GPS Directions? Bird’s Eye Maps (showing your curbside to strangers)? You’ll Facebook Me, IM me, Snapchat me? Google me? You should watch my feed later! I’ll ask siri or alexa what he/she thinks. In 2002 (when this page first posted ) if you would have used this kind of language, you MIGHT have been referred to a mental health professional!
The last few centuries are nearly an eternity when it comes to technological advancements in the computer age; but really these centuries are only fractions of time compared to the possibility that 99% of technological history lies in the prehistoric times of Paleolithic and Neolithic eras. While it seems remote to suggest that advancements of so long ago have anything to do with today, it’s impossible to “…confine [our] attention to instruments and techniques alone…” (the party quoted in 2002 here, by a web URL is not a working link any longer; the author once credited was lost in a simple URL change).
“Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. . . . Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself—its world view; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later there is a new world.” -Peter F. Drucker as quoted by Jeremy Hope in Completing the Third Wave (1997).
It’s interesting to note that in the last few centuries society has changed the way it works, the way it produces, and along with those changes it has altered the way it shares information. Even the letters of the alphabet would have to be classified as technological advancements (and my five year old—in 2002 anyway – thought the letters “K” “a” “y” “l” “a” were the hottest things going!). A few years later, oh about 2008, the first time I set up wireless printing in the house – as I was bragging to my youngest while hitting the CTRL P for a printer in other rooms and no wires – she responded with a “so” – and walked out of the room. Little did she know that “data packs” were being “unpacked” and flown collectively from one device to another – where “beam me up scotty” took some shape in a wireless printing moment!
Some of the most marveling advancements are, at least relatively speaking, really only from recent times. In fact, a great many of the marvels are from very, very recent times. The World Wide Web, for example didn’t get it’s debut until 1991 (but more about that later).
And all of this talk of technology, communication, and change, admittedly leaves out so many other wonders of this day and age: medicine, automobiles, space shuttles, air planes, nuclear power, electric guitars, digital photography, DVD’s, satellite navigational systems, credit cards, and the list could go on and on.
“In 1887 author and visionary Edward Bellamy described the year 2000 with surprising accuracy in his novel Looking Backward. His work is fiction, but listen to this: he wrote of the use of credit cards, shopping without cash, and music that comes from the walls of buildings. 125 years later we rely on credit/debit cards and shop to the sound of music that comes from the speakers of radio.”
Whether we look at the evolution of communication from ancient times through modern times the technology that encompasses communication is ever expanding. The changes that come usually bring improvements, but not entirely without growing pains. It all starts with a little creativity, some imagination, and certainly it starts with a vision.
And maybe, author John Diebold (1984) in his book Making the Future Work, sums it up best: “Visions are man-made. There is no one vision for all time nor for all mankind. Visions compete with one another, influence one another, adapt to circumstances. Visions also differ in their size….a great societal vision is not proposed or planned or voted on…it is an evolution of human thinking…”
All said, words matter. Allot! Let’s see what’s next in the evolving timeline of communication!
Read how clinical hypnosis and language can be linked together to increase mental heath treatment outcomes. If you don’t think words matter … they DO!
Rev. 7/3/19