I found the Victorian Internet to be a very intriguing and eye-opening read. It was surprising to read how the Internet seems to be going through similar difficulties as the telegraph did in its early discovery and inception into society as a communication technology phenomenon.
Before reading this I viewed the telegraph and its invention as having a purely military usefulness. Useful for top secret codes to be transmitted during time of war with very primitive notation that could not be read by an uninformed public. It always seemed separate from public use or proprietary success. I failed to realize or read of its extremely large and critically analyzed rise and eventual acceptance throughout the world. I did not realize the widespread use of the technology as easily compared to the impacts of the telephone or the Internet. Nor did I ever read of the early forms of the telegraph as clever telegraph stations were set up with telescopes to communicate from relatively far distances for the time 17-18Th century period. It is extremely fascinating to see similar past skepticism to a technology that is so widely accepted today. We could predict the future for similar innovative communication technologies and learn to be less skeptic of their future applications from understanding these past communication technologies. As I read through I kept thinking of today's communication phenomenon of the Internet and what could possible be next to completely change the face of world interaction and communication. It will be interesting to see what it might be as we have come to find with the internet and generations before with the telegraph we will not be able to realize life without it.
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When I was reading the Victorian Internet, I came to the same realization that people fear change. When a new development comes about, most will turn their back and walk away doubting its possible usefullness. But what makes an invention so successful are the people who are behind it. The ones who thought of the idea, followed through and truly believed in it. When one believes in their product, they will do whatever they can to get everyone to at least give it a try. And if it fails, they keep trying by finding new ways to promote their product or make it better. People will forever react the same as they have towards new advancements in life. The creators just have to work harder to convince them.
Actually that was also one of the first things that came to my mind too when I would think of the telegraph, “military use”. I will admit that I didn’t know too much about the telegraph before I read this book but I knew it had something to do with Thomas Edison, and I thought that it was used during war time to transmit encrypted messages to military bases for others to decode. I’ve seen countless war movies which always show telegraphers receiving important messages. I would have never imagined that the last telegram was just sent this past January. I thought they stopped using the telegraph sometime after WWII or even at least e-mails became popular. Actually, if I would have known that they were still using the telegraph and were going to be shutting it down then I would have wanted to send a telegram just to be able to say, “I sent one of the last telegrams ever sent in history.”
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