My radio broadcast on Radio National's Ockham's Razor on 1 September 2013.

This story (written and recorded by me) was broadcast on Sunday 1 September 2013 on Radio National's 'Ockham's Razor'.

ABC radio then loaded it onto its website, where it attracted 222 'likes' and 25 comments - so far (5sept13) along with 29 tweets (copied at end of article).  

Update:  227 'likes' (as of 8 September).    

The early years of the mobile phone in Australia

Monday 2 September 2013 11:01AM

Robin Robertson

Image: Owning a mobile phone in 1990 went hand-in-hand with success and possessing good looks. (Hulton Archive/ Getty Images )

In 1989 historian Robin Robertson saw her first mobile phone on a bus in Sydney. She wrote a piece about her first impressions which was published in a newspaper, and later incorporated into the high school curriculum of NSW. Read her article and sit the comprehension test to discover anew the impact of these ubiquitous, intrusive devices.


The mobile phone has been with us for 40 years, but it took a while to get up to speed.  In its formative years it kept a low profile and was rarely seen in public.

In 1989, it had been around for 16 years when I first saw a mobile phone in action on a government bus. And, along with about 35 other passengers, it had my undivided attention.
I felt I had seen a pivotal moment in technology, so I wrote an eyewitness account and sent it to a mainstream newspaper.  A few days later, it was published.

At that time, the mobile phone was not just a novelty, it was a luxury item, retailing at about $2,000.  That’s over $4,000 in today’s money.  Although it had a battery life of a mere 75 minutes, subscription and call charges were very high.

So you can be sure that most of the newspaper’s readers were not mobile phone subscribers. Only six in every thousand had one in 1989, compared with today, where there are 1.3 mobile phones per person.

A ringing phone brings out the primitive human reaction: fight or flight - depending, of course, on how the phone has treated you in the past.  If you can't run away from it, you stand your ground and argue with it.

Robin Robertson, historian

But back in 1989, the mobile phone’s scarcity simply added to its status, ensuring that it only kept the best of company with top executives and city traders.  It later proved to be not just a pretty face, and became a vital business tool for travelling salesmen and delivery drivers, but was still far too expensive for personal use.

Which is possibly why my newspaper article hit a nerve and took on a life of its own, as it was picked up and reprinted in a high school textbook on Themes and Issues.

The textbook’s title was The Future, and my article had become a comprehension test for students.

You could find my article on page 73, followed by probing questions on page 74, searching for its deeper meaning.

No answers to these questions were supplied so I am none the wiser, and certainly would have failed the test.

See how you go with the comprehension test. But first, here is the story on which you will be tested.  Again: the year is 1989, and the action takes place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia.


The headline set the scene:
'A mobile man makes his mark on captive audience'

Then continued:
'I was on a bus travelling down George Street to Central Station when the phone rang.  About half the seats were occupied, and we all looked around for the phone, which isn't a part of government bus issue.

'A ringing phone brings out the primitive human reaction: fight or flight—depending, of course, on how the phone has treated you in the past.  If you can't run away from it, you stand your ground and argue with it.

'I, for one, went on the alert.  I itched to answer it, if I could find it.  But the man two seats away beat me to it.  It was a cellular phone that he carried in a square shoulder bag.  He flipped up the lid and out came the phone.  We all watched, hoping perhaps it might be for one of us.

'I suppose the conclusion was foregone.  It was for him.  The caller didn't have to ask: 'Is Jim there?' because a cellular phone precludes any such foreplay.  The question really was:  is the phone there?  And it was, because Jim answered.

'And, right there, in the middle of a government bus, Jim struck up a business conversation.  Nice and loud so we could all listen.  Well, we weren't doing anything else at the time.

'Jim told his caller—and us—that he was on his way to Central Station, where he intended to catch a train to Katoomba, and a nice day for it too, and he had been meaning to get in touch—we all knew he was lying, because people always say that when they have no intention of maintaining contact.

'He went on to express his indignation that the account had gone to another advertising agency (which he named) that was nowhere near the standard of the caller's agency (we assumed the caller had an agency).  It was a damn shame, he said—and we knew he didn't care two cents.

'In general, we didn't take kindly to Jim, or anyone, really, who carried a cellular phone on a government bus.

'Phones should stay put—on the kitchen bench or the office desk.  People go to phones.  Phones do not go to people.

'It is an intrusion that phones should go on an outing and be allowed to ring in public places.  Unless, of course, it is for me.

'On the other hand, Jim didn't have to go to Katoomba by himself.  He could, at the first twinge of loneliness, phone all his mates.  On the down side, his enemies could hunt him down in a government bus and force him to tell lies while the rest of the passengers sat in judgment.

'The phone call was made all the less ordinary by the background noises.  As Jim talked, the bus had a near miss with a truck.  Our attention was then divided between Jim's conversation and the bus driver shouting fruity abuse at the truck driver.  Both were stopped at the traffic lights, the truck a few centimetres from the bus.

'The bus driver's vocabulary was specific and expletive and drowned out Jim's conversation. He then further defended his honour by leaning out of his window and throwing a punch at the truck driver who, hanging out of his passenger window, was a sitting target.

'The lights turned green, the bus driver sat back and drove on. Jim talked on, his image in tatters, as the caller now believed he had just been involved in a bar-room brawl.

'Why, we wondered, was Jim on a bus?  If he could afford a cellular phone, surely he could also afford the car to go with it.

'That was the missing component—the car.

'In his car, no one could listen in.  He could drive through peak hour traffic, talking on the phone and onlookers from other cars with no phones could imagine he was making decisions that would turn the economy around.

'Furthermore, they would be impressed that he was so vital he could not be out of contact for even a short car trip, and did he take calls in the shower?

'A cellular phone is a badge of corporate approval.  Everyone wants one, if only to be seen with it...'



That was the article I wrote in 1989. Now you have no doubt some questions of your own.

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We should continue with the school text and deal with the comprehension questions that followed the article.
With the benefit of hindsight, you may know the answers.  Then again, you may not…
1. In what ways do you notice technology intruding into more areas of our lives?
2. What are the benefits, and what are the drawbacks, of these technological changes which you can see?
3. In a small group, locate and list all of the criticisms the author made about this telephone call in a bus
4. Now compare your list with other groups.
5. How valid are these criticisms, in your opinion?
6. What warning signs are there in these criticisms for the future of technological communication?
7. 'People go to phones.  Phones do not go to people.' What is the warning message behind the author's comment?
8. Are there any drawbacks you can see in the ways telephones, fax machines, video-phones and computer bulletin boards allow people instant communication with other people?
9. The author hints that face-to-face talking would not allow so many lies to be told in this bus-telephone conversation.
10. How is face-to-face conversation different from electronic communication?
11. How do people still manage to hide their true feelings in face-to-face conversation?
12. Is it harder or easier than when on the phone? Why?
13. Try a back-to-back conversation in class about a current school topic and then compare this with a face-to-face conversation.
14. What are the different communication techniques used on the telephone?
15. In what ways are human relationships enhanced, and in what ways are they inhibited, by technological advances?
16. If we look into the future and see computer/video watches, computer screen school books and Walkman TVs, how can we make sure that these inventions are for the benefit of our children, the people who will have to use them to live a 'normal' life in the future?
And that concludes the comprehension test. Over to you.
This article is an edited transcript of Robin Robertson's Ockham's Razor.

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