“Romeo?”
“Juliet! Great to hear your voice!”
“Look, I have to make this a quick call. Mum and dad want to marry me off.”
“They can’t! I won’t let them!”
“Don’t worry, Romeo. The Friar has given me this potion that will make me look dead. It’ll fool my parents and there’ll be no marriage. After a fake funeral he’ll put me in the old crypt. I’ll wake up the next day. You can be there and we can run away together to Mantua.”
“Brilliant. You can count on me.”
Well, OK, Shakespeare might have written that dialogue a bit better, but the point is that the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet could have been avoided by a ‘phone call. An email, a tweet or an entry in Facebook could have worked just as well (as long as Lord and Lady Capulet weren’t in the habit of going online). In other words, a rapid method of communication of some kind would have been a godsend to the famous star-crossed lovers, while the written message that never got to Romeo was their downfall.
Immediate modern communication has been a pretty good thing generally. The ‘phone can bring the emergency services to an incident within minutes to save lives. It has connected families and friends across the world. The fact that parents for decades have gone ashen pale at the sight of astronomical phone bills run up by their offspring does not belie the ‘phone’s usefulness as a communications tool.
The same can be true of the range of social networking media. Jackie Ashley has written a good article on
www.guardian.co.uk “Why I welcome the decline of the twittering classes” criticising frenzied use by young and parents alike, as well as its part in building unreal relationships. However, while there is merit in what she says, misuse is only part of the picture.
Social networking is already contributing positively to the worlds of work and leisure and it is very early days yet. This new range of communications media has yet to find its level and there‘s a lot of evolution to go before it realises its full potential.