Past, Present And Hypothetical Future Communication Technologies

Let us reflect on our own experiences before considering hypothetical futures in the works of Poul Anderson and others. We have to learn each new means of communication. Remembering the initial novelty of each newly introduced medium or mechanism might give us some insight into how an sf writer imagines technologies that are exotic to us but familiar to his fictional characters. A child, like a time traveler, has recently arrived in the present. As usual, examples multiply when I start to think about them.

Telephones
One of my sisters was amazed the first time she heard my voice coming out of a telephone but soon took it for granted that we use phones to "ring" people.

I felt awkward the first time I had to speak into an ansaphone. Some people repeat themselves unnecessarily to ansaphones. A friend's father was annoyed when the guy who answered the phone kept repeating himself. When told that it was a recording, he replied, "How can a tape recorder answer a phone?"

Cinema and Television
A friend had thought that the world used to be black and white because old films were.

In Britain, going to the cinema used to be called "going to the pictures." Also, a cinema would advertise a feature film with an exterior showcase displaying still pictures from the film so a friend had thought that "going to the pictures" meant entering that building, then following a story by walking down a corridor displaying a long sequence of still pictures.

A friend's son was amazed that his father had another television in another room with the same program. My daughter looked after a young boy who told her that he had seen a newly released film on television. When asked if he was sure that it was on television, he replied, "Yes! A big television in a big house!"

A cartoon depicted a young child who was amazed that a new gadget, a transistor radio, was just like a television but without a screen.

Emails, texts and comboxes...
...lack physical presence, body language, facial expressions and tones of voice. Words typed in humorous vein or with ironic intent might come across to the recipient as terse or impatient. I apologize if any of my recent communications have had this effect.

Hypothetical Futures
In Isaac Asimov's The Stars Like Dust, electrons sent hundreds of light years through hyperspace are received in a polarized space where they are detected only by the brain waves of the person to whom they are addressed. While he hears an inner voice, the device that generates the carrier wave for his reply, concealed in his clothing, is automatically activated by the space polarization. He need only concentrate and think purposefully.

In James Blish's Cities In Flight, the Mayor of the flying city of New York, engaged in multiple negotiations, stands before cameras apparently silent, motionless and alone while watching local space traffic in a three dimensional color-coded chart disguised as a desk, hearing his city manager through a tiny vibrator embedded in the mastoid bone behind his right ear and replying without moving his lips through throat mikes under a high military collar.

There is some kind of technological equivalent of telepathy in Oath Of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, as in "Progress" by Poul Anderson. In the latter, a surgically implanted ultraminiaturized radio draws power from body heat. In Anderson's The Stars Are Also Fire, when a disc in Venator's pocket buzzes, he places it beside his right ear, hears by bone induction and subvocalizes in reply.

Anderson's Technic History explains how limited telepathy would usually be if the telepath was unfamiliar with the other being's distinctive mental processes  - then presents Aycharaych as a universal telepath.