The closeness and vulnerability of modern communications

A weekend upon which to reflect my links over the past twenty-four hours with people literally all over the world.

I have commented upon a photograph posted in Australia, exchanged plans to meet up with friends in California and New Jersey, discussed details of a pamphlet I have finally completed this week with my contacts in Kyoto and today arranged accommodation in South Africa for a visit in March. Add to that just now a Skype call to a friend in Reading (I am finally getting the hang of it - I think) and conventional telephone calls, mobile phone calls and texts through the day.

I remember vividly twiddling the dials of HF radios during late night radio watches whilst serving in the Rhodesian army in the 1970's and listening in absolute awe at the ease with which civilian radio hams spoke over the air waves to each other. The world seemed a great deal bigger then and yet, in the stillness of the night, we were all so close - they chatting, me listening.

I am constantly amazed by the progress of information technology and how we seem to so quickly take it all for granted. Where would I be without my iPod - my BlackBerry - my laptop or PlayBook (which I am learning to re-love)?

The World Wide Web - that takes me back to my first Apple computer in the 1990's ... now we have Wikipedia in place of the Encyclopedia Britannica (or is it alongside?).

At what point will we or should we stop evolving these electronic communications systems, I wonder? Are we the better for them? Luddites step forward ... I guess so long as we don't forget how to multiply or divide, a desk calculator can't hinder progress; it will be when we lose the ability to communicate without access to electronic power or gadgetry that the problem will begin. Taught as a cub, I at least, can still use semaphore flags!

Twitter and tweating

I've taken delivery of a Blackberry so that I can not only do my email out and about but also Twitter ... suddenly the world has become a much smaller place as I swap tweats and follow tweats all around the world!

The world is a much smaller place than once it was and I never cease to wonder - particularly when visiting the United States and Australia - how lonely and vast it must have appeared to the early pioneers from Europe who set out to explore those two vast landscapes. Today of course we just jump back in the car, pull out a mobile telephone or twitter on a Blackberry and the world wraps its self around us.

When I was doing my national service as a signalman in the army I was always fascinated by radio communication across the world and would spend many hours in the solitude of the operations room before dawn listening to radio hams chatting to each other - usually on the other side of the world - and wishing that I could take part in their exchanges. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think that something like the World Wide Web, Chat Rooms or Twitter would be not just a reality but the norm within my lifetime. We all have access and this is being spread across the four corners of the world!

This speed of communication is a phenomenally powerful tool that could be bringing people and ideas together but sadly it brings also increased conflict. Religion, political and economic power or influence ... the list goes on. What will it take, I wonder, for us to use such power constructively to save our peoples, our resources and our world?