Past and Present

Communication plays a role in all information exchanged between living species. Technically
speaking, even plants and fungi communicate with each other. In the past, the type of
communication technology devices has evolved smoke signals, carrier pigeons to letters and
telegrams. Nowadays, there are more efficient way to communicate such as through e-mails,
fax machines, mobile phones and the list goes on. From my point of view, the differences of
communication technology in the past and today are that it is more advanced and it involves
face-to-face communication. Technology has been helping us to communicate easier and
faster.
In the past, people wrote letters to communicate with friends and family separated by
distance because it was the only way to communicate long distance. Mail would take 3-7
days to arrive to its destination. Express and overnight mail was an expensive option, thats
costly and time consuming, at least until the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.
The invention of the telegraph allowed messages to be sent faster and further by translating
messages through cable lines. The creation of the telegraph in the 1800s brought about
generational change in communication.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s the first telegraph was invented. The telegraph system
was a form of communication that transmitted electric signals over wires from different
locations to translate messages. The first telegraph was invented by Claude Chappe in 1794,
this telegraph was not electric, it was a semaphores, or tall poles with movable arms, set
within physical sight of one another. In 1836, Samuel Morse built the first telegraph system
from Washington to Baltimore using cable lines across the Atlantic Ocean. He used a set of
signals that could represent language in telegraph messages also known as Morse Code.
The telegraph made it possible for other forms of rapid communication and truly changed the
world because before telegraphs, the country was very isolated from other regions of the
world. Within a decade, more than 20 thousand miles of telegraph cables had crossed the
country. Most of the world had a limited amount of knowledge of national and international
news. By the end of the 1870s, the United States was connected to a global
telecommunications network that allowed for relatively low-cost, communication. The
telegraph was truly influential in the growth of communication.

Furthermore, the telephone is one invention that changed the world and opened a wide world
of communication. Many businesses benefited from the additional communication options
that became available after the invention of the telephone. As communication continues to
evolve, businesses continue to benefit from the additional communication channels that are
open to make completing business transactions and connecting to customers easier. The
telephone was invented in the 1870s. Alexander Graham Bell was the first person to register
the invention of the telephone at the patent office. The telephone came about because they
were trying to improve the capabilities of the telegraph. In 1925, Almon Strowger patents the
direct dial telephone. After the telephone was invented, wealthy individuals and large
corporations primarily used it as a means of communications between specific locations. This
means that the corporation or individual would run the wires themselves between locations.
These were called direct lines.