I decided to look into the past
of the term of “text messaging” in relation to its meaning in the modern
information society. Both the oldest journalistic article and the oldest
scholarly article’s mention of this term use a tone of excitement towards this “new
technology”. I found an article in the New York Times from May 14, 1998 titled An Even Smaller Phone With Even More Stuff,
where they brag of the latest cellular phone being able to send phone-to-phone
text messages and voicemail. It is somewhat comical to read an article or
advertisement bragging about the features of the newest cell phone during that
time because of the comparison of the numerous features of the modern cell
phones today. Text messaging was a mere extra feature at that time for cell
phones in addition to voice calls, and is now the main form of communication in
the cellular world (An Even Smaller Phone With Even More Stuff, 1998). I also found
an article through ProQuest from April 5,1982, titled Integrating a Voice Store and Forward System in an OCC
Network,
which discusses the features of the VS&F system. The article boasts about
the “text messaging” feature in the system. It is interesting to note that this
article’s reference to the term “text messaging” does not hold the same
connotation as the term does today. This mention of text messaging was in
reference to a computer-like system that was targeted more for office and business
use in order to create an efficient work place. The way society thinks of this
term now is in the form of cellular use, not computer use (Integrating a Voice
Store and Forward System in an OCC Network, 1982). Text messaging was displayed
as a great advancement in both these articles for both computer systems and for
cell phones. However, text messaging now is seen as an essential application in
our cellular devices and of today’s generation. Text messaging is just one of
the main features of cell phones in addition to the thousands of new
applications and features cell phones offer today.
It is interesting to see how text messaging has evolved into a standard form of communication that everyone uses. The fact that it was only for computers, which have more processing power, shows how much innovation is put into this medium of communication. It also sounds like the computer form of text messaging is what we think of as email.
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