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30,000 BCE
Cave Paintings
The oldest form of symbols used for communication is cave paintings. According to theorists, cave paintings were created to mark a territory or to record events. The oldest cave painting was discovered inside Chauvet Cave in France around 30,000 B.C. Other earliest cave paintings were found in South Sulawesi, Indonesia and Coliboaia Cave in Romania. -
10,000 BCE
Symbols
Our early ancestors have used different variations of signs and symbols to communicate. Around 10,000 B.C., petroglyphs were created. In 9,000 B.C., pictograms were developed in which ancient people logographic images to tell a story. -
2400 BCE
Postal System
During the ancient period, Egyptians used courier serve to send out decrees in 2,400 B.C. Until now, a piece of mail which dates back to 255 B.C. is still preserved. Postal systems were also organized in Persia, China, India, and Rome before. On the other hand, it was only in 1653 when Frenchman De Valayer started a postal system in Paris which involved the use of mailboxes and delivery of paid envelopes. -
22
Carrier Pigeons
Over 2,000 years ago, the ancient Romans used pigeons as primary messengers between military men. In the 12th century, messenger pigeons were widely used. -
Period: 1440 to
Newspaper
In 1440, German Johannes Gutenberg developed the printing press system which radically changed communication forever. With this, the newspaper began to flourish in the 16th century. The German-language publication of Johann Carolus in Strasbourg in 1605 was the first newspaper. The first English-language newspaper was published in Amsterdam in 1620. -
Period: to
Radio
After print media flourished, radio followed. In the 1830s, various scientists, such as Maxwell and Hughes studied wireless telegraphy which developed the theory of electromagnetism. In 1888, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovered “Hertzian waves”, named after him. In 1893, Tesla started using wireless power as a form of transmitting content. In the early 20th century, radio broadcasting began. -
Period: to
Telegraph
Telegraph communication started after Samuel Morse invented the Morse code which encoded the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The Morse code transmitted messages through series of clicks, tones, and lights. In 1830, Morse integrated the Morse code in telegraphy technology that revolutionized the long-distance communication. In 1844, Morse sent his first telegraph message. -
Period: to
Telephone
The telegraphy was immediately replaced by the telephone. It was invented by Scottish Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. The telephone acts is a telecommunication device that converts human audio signals to electronic signals which are transmitted via cables. It was further developed to commercially cater to local and long distant calls. In the 1900s, landline telephone service began. Up until now, the telephone remained one of the most reliable telecommunication devices. -
TV
Along with telephones, television started to become a mode of indirect communication to the mass audience. The television was not just invented by a single person, but developed through the efforts of various brilliant people. The earliest records of TV broadcasting occurred after the World War II, in which the display was still black and white. Now, more than 1.5 billion households in the world own a television. -
Period: to
Internet
After the creation of computers in the 1950s, the ARPANET, which was the early predecessor of the internet was developed. The ARPANET was designed to manage communication between ARPA computer terminals in the 1960s. The term “internet” first emerged in 1973. The first internet service provider was Telenet. In 1983, the domain system started. In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, introduced the World Wide Web (www) which definitely started the modern internet. -
Period: to
E-mail
With the onset of the internet, electronic mails started to become popular. Although emails came before the ARPANET, however, it was “offline”. In 1975, John Vittal developed a software to organize emails. From that time, 75% of ARPANET traffic was email. In 1994, Yahoo! was born. It was followed by other mailing platforms, including Hotmail and Google Mail. -
Period: to
Text Message
The first official SMS messaging took place on December 3, 1992, when Neil Papworth, an engineer from Sema Group (now Airwide Solutions) used a computer to send “Merry Christmas” through the Vodafone network. In 1994, the Radiolinja was the first network service provider to carry out person-to-person text messaging. Now, SMS has evolved in which over 9 trillion SMS are sent every year. -
Period: to
Social Media
It has become more available the use social media because of the proliferation of smartphones where social media apps can easily be installed. In 2004, Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg. Today, Messenger is one of the most widely used messaging apps. There are more than two billion Facebook users worldwide. In 2005, YouTube became the first-ever popular video hosting social media site. In 2006, Twitter began to dominate the social media scene. Other social media platforms have followed. -
References
Munoz, Richard. “The Evolution of Communication through the Centuries.” MobileCon, 22 Aug. 2018, https://www.mobilecon2012.com/the-evolution-of-communication-through-the-centuries/. KalamTime. “Evolution of Communication from Ancient to Modern Times.” KalamTime Blog, 24 Jan. 2022, https://www.kalamtime.com/blog/evolution-of-communication/#:~:text=The%20Evolution%20of%20Communication%20is,would%20be%20impossible%20without%20communicating.