the telephone is such a marvelous invention :) my first encounters with it involved calls of only "important matters". we didn't have a phone in the 80s. if we wanted to relay important messages to our parents, who were working at their offices, we had to go to the neighbor's house to make calls. that was the only use of the telephone until we had our own phone line. papa went a bit crazy and had extension lines installed - in all the 3 bedrooms!
my first telebabad-mate was my cousin, irish. that was some time around the early 90s. they were living in bf and our house was in sto. nino. we talked about the most wonderful things in the world. what we'll do when we next see each other, are we going to ride the bike, or make snow out of styrofoam, are we going to the roof to sprinkle snow. these were the best things in life! :)
then came high school. there was a perfect balance in life. there was a time for school, a time for doing assignments, and a time for telebabad. topics included assignments, crushes, laugh trip. i remember that we even had a codename for i-can't-talk-right-now-someone-could-hear-me! the codename is "malamok" hahaha! it's funny because it really was (and is still) malamok in our house. we even did impersonations of romy diaz over the phone. crazy days. my lola would just give me stares of disapproval.
college was also a telebabad era, but it was more of kwentuhan galore instead of school work. the topics were less crazy, more of pangdalagang stories. and we were not contented with 2 people talking at a time. we would have conference calls - so we could all talk together as a group! as if we didn't have enough time together at school! i talked with my girl friends, boy friends, and my ex boyfriend. yihee. ala-ala ng telebabad. there was a lot of laughter. there were buckets of tears. aba'y kung makakareklamo nga lang siguro ang telepono.
the telephone was the most important means of communication until the mobile phones came. in the sinaunang days, when you wanted to meet with someone, you call them up, arrange a meeting place and time, and just show up. life was too simple. people just magically show up at the meeting place. now, meetings are arranged - and cancelled - at the very last minute. "text text na lang," is everybody's favorite phrase. i think it somehow gave the people an extra option to not show up.
during the early life of mobile phones in the philippines, call time was reduced big time because calls were too expensive. the telebabad was transformed to a karera. pabilisang masabi ang kailangan mong masabi! if you could do it in less than a minute then it's perfect! these days, libre na ulit ang magtelebabad sa mobile phones, but i got used to the notion that mobile phone calls are luxury calls. do people still do telebabad?
aside from calls, i now have a complete dependence on my mobile phone. recipes, calculator, dictionary, sms, radio, research, edit docs, emails, photos, directions. lahat na! what used to be available in libraries are now readily available on your fingertips with just a few finger taps. it's good. it's bad. i love that you no longer have an excuse for being ignorant. you won't get lost, you will always have answers. that's good. i hate that i am not forced to think too hard now that i could always verify online. my brain is not working overtime because it knows that it doesn't have to store too much information now. the magic phone could do it for you. that's bad.
i feel lucky. i am a witness to the magical transition of communication means.
- no landline
- landline
- mobile phone free SMS
- mobile phone P1 per SMS
- dial-up internet
- WAP on mobile phones
- wifi internet
- smart phones that give you everything that's good and bad
if this is not transition, then i don't know what is. shucks. i feel old :))))
