Garth George: Cellphone misuse

Far too often we read reports of serious problems arising from the misuse of mobile phones - particularly among children.

The real danger is invariably in text messaging, with bullying, "sexting" and other inappropriate communication between adults and children at the top of the list.

This has been linked, in at least one case in the Bay of Plenty, to a schoolgirl committing suicide.

It is just another example of how good and useful technological progress is soon corrupted by the ignorant, the stupid and the downright evil, who, sadly, are always among us.

There is no answer to this problem because even the most extensive education on the use and misuse of cellphones is not going to cover all children because many of them - and their parents - just don't give a damn.

For some reason, the latest report of cellphone misuse among children led me to reminisce about what telephonic communication was like when I was at school, and if any children - in fact, anyone under the age of 30 or so - who bother to read this column don't believe what they're about to read, I don't really blame them.

Our telephone - and not too many families had one - was a large wooden box which hung on the wall, with a hook for the handpiece on one side and a handle on the other. To make a call you lifted the handpiece off the hook and turned the handle.

This caused a light to go on in the local telephone exchange, where telephone operators - mostly women - sat in front of walls of equipment consisting mainly of holes.

She put a plug in the hole above the number you were calling from and said, "Number please?" You gave her the number and she placed another plug in another hole, flicked a switch, the phone rang at the other end and you were connected.

The operation could take anywhere from 15 seconds to 10 minutes, depending on how busy the operators were.

And as for calls to another town or city, they were expensive and could take hours to come through.

You talk about problems with cellphones? Well how about this?

There were so few telephone lines available in the l940s and 50s that as many as 10 home telephones were connected to a single line. They were called party lines.

And what that meant was that if you picked up your phone to make a call, and someone on your party line was already talking, you had to hang up and wait for them to finish - or not. You could simply eavesdrop on the conversation.

And a lot of people did. In fact, many a housewife spent much of her day listening in on other people's phone talk.

Each telephone on the party line had a distinctive ring so you knew which of the calls coming in was for you. Trouble was, your phone rang for everyone's calls.

So you had to be careful about what you said on the phone lest the neighbourhood became aware of your doings just about as quickly as you did. Fortunately, doctors, lawyers, other professionals and businesses had their own dedicated lines.

I well remember when the first dial telephones were installed in the reporters' room of the newspaper I worked for - in the early 1960s.

What a tremendous boon they were - no more waiting for any but toll operators, and no more party lines. But even then you couldn't have a conversation at work and know that no one else could listen in because the office telephonist could - as I learned once to my chagrin.

Nevertheless, dial phones were the biggest breakthrough in telephone communication in my lifetime - until, of course, the advent of the ubiquitous mobile.

garth.george@hotmail.com