Week 2

 FROM PHOTO BOOTHS TO MOBILE PHONES.

Everyone has seen red booths on the streets in a form of a rectangular parallelepiped with payphone inside. A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, public call box, or whatever you may call was an essential monument to the history of the telephone and currently is just a tourist attraction or somewhere to shelter from the cold.

Why did they become useless you may ask and the answer is quite simple- because of the rise of mobile phones. There's rarely going to be any need for a coin-operated telephone when you have one in your pocket.  

Where it all started. 

In 1889, William Gray constructed the first phone booth in a bank in Connecticut. Many people are still convinced that England was the home of the phone booth, however, they were introduced in London in 1903. The distinction between the model of Gray and its predecessors was that until after the end of the call, callers had to wait to pay. By 1902, payphones had gained such prominence that 81,000 were installed in the U.S.  

However, nothing lasts forever and as soon as mobile phones were invented, the telephone booths were already considered obsolete. The word,, mobile’’ itself means portable and is the exact description of the phone that was invented in 1973 by Motorola employee Martin Cooper. There was no need for you to search for telephone boxes in the rural areas, especially when there was an emergency. The mobile phone was placed in your pocket and could be easily accessible to the person in need. Therefore, this significant breakthrough is largely considered to be successful and essential. 

However, bizarre as it may seem, there are some things that technological advancements could not replace completely, for instance, books. Tech-devices such as tablets are widely used by adults around the globe but the majority of society still prefers using books. There are both benefits and downsides to the latter situation. I will break down 2 on each side.

Negative sides of books/Positive sides of tablets. 

It can take ages for us to find the desired information in books. 

For example, finding the unknown word in dictionaries take up a lot of valuable time, while there is a much more time-consuming way of searching it, by typing the word in google. 

Some books may be difficult and unsafe to carry. 

While going on a vacation or a road-trip, tablets are more useful, light and some of them are even waterproof. However, Books can be easily destroyed in case of rain or just a splash of water. 

 

Positive sides of books/negative sides of tablets. 

Books are considered to be cheap. 

There is no doubt that many people do not have enough money to buy technological devices so they prefer buying books, which are relatively cheap. 

Books can rarely cause eye-fatigue. 

Staring at the screen may damage eyes, especially if you are a child, while a book is more convenient and harmless. 

Realizing these advantages and disadvantages we can conclude that there are still some terrible side effects of new technology. That is why there was no possibility of replacing books with any modern equipment.