What I See with Peter Fiorenza: Communication advances really have changed our lives

The other day I was thinking of how communication has come a long way in such a relatively short time.

Since I was a youngster, merely 40 years or so ago, things have certainly come a long way.

I can remember back in the 1980s when everyone would wait until after 8pm at night to make an STD call (a phone call to someone in Perth or in the Eastern States).

I recall my mum using the time with the discounted fee to contact family and friends out of town.

It’s quite ironic when you realise that a call on your mobile from the supermarket today would actually cost more in dollar terms.

But that’s just how it was, with most people only having one landline telephone in their homes and the lucky ones the luxury of an answering machine attached.

I remember as a kid watching American TV Shows like The FBI and marvelling at the fact the coppers had phones in their cars.

Yes, it’s funny now when you think how much advances in technology have impacted our daily lives.

Right now, most of us have a smartphone that can virtually do things that we needed multiple devices to do in the past.

This includes such tasks from writing business emails to watching the latest movie on myriad media platforms.

I know it’s a cliche, but advancements in communication have, in many respects, really made the world a much smaller place.

I remember, when my nanna was alive back in the late 1980s, when we decided to try and contact her brothers in Ireland.

After some letter writing back and forth, we secured a telephone contact.

Now, being an international call, we had to involve a manual operator to help put us through.

And it was just incredible when my nanna got to hear her little brother Arthur, who she had not seen since he was a small boy, speaking on the other end of the line.

I don’t know if nanna really heard what uncle Arthur was saying, because she couldn’t stop crying.

Fast forward to a recent radio program, where through the use of my mobile and Messenger, I was able to get in contact with an Australian TV correspondent in the United States.

The reporter spoke live to me and my audience from Washington DC about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

And all organised with just a few messages.

Many of us would take something such as this for granted.

But I still reckon it’s bloody amazing.

Peter Fiorenza hosts Fiorenza on Sundays between 10am and noon on Radio MAMA