Influences
Before the telephone, communication between two people wasn?t easy. It could take days, weeks, or even months to get a message across the world! At the time when it was introduced, people did not realize the potential of the telephone, but when it was developed to the fullest, it proved to be a useful means of communication. It has helped in local and international communications.
First of all, in the pre-telephone era, the only type of communication in America was the Postal Service. The Postal Service was not something reliable enough to entrust messages in, for they were often lost, never delivered, or taken so long to arrive, that information in the message had been outdated, or no longer true. In cross-country terms, the telephone helped a great deal. During the years of the pony express, the riders were all adolescents with no family, many who were not trained. The mail was faster than the Postal service, but a good deal less reliable. Riders could be killed by Indians, lost in the wilderness, or be to scared and back out. The telephone has fixed this problem.
Before 1866, when the Transatlantic Cable had been established, the only way to get a message to someone across the seas was by boat, which took over a month, making it not efficient for the same reason as the Postal Service. Even when the Transatlantic Cable was established in 1858, it failed within a week. It was only when the telephone was invented that international communications became efficient. For example, if the telephone had existed during the War of 1812, news of the treaty would have reached the U.S. army in time to prevent an unnecessary battle, even if it had been a victory.
In conclusion, the telephone has had a great influence in our life. It has been used to help in local as well as international communications. Many of us do not realize its importance to our lives. We use it every day and many of us could not survive without it. We use the telephone to schedule meetings, plan parties, call doctors, pick up chicks, and much much more. The telephone has been used to save lives and it is very important to our daily lives.