A newspaper article from decades ago has just surfaced again and is causing a stir on social media because of its shocking prophecy regarding the development of telephones. The Tacoma News Tribune published this piece in 1953, and it contained a prediction about the future of communication.
Today’s readers are shocked by how well it predicted the smartphone era. Many people have responded to the headline, “There’ll Be No Escape in Future from Telephones,” saying it accurately captures the hyperconnected world we have now. The piece has gone viral online, sparking new conversations about early technological predictions.
Who predicted the era of smartphones in the 1953 newspaper?
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Mark R. Sullivan, the president and director of the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. in San Francisco at the time, made the audacious prediction. Even though he acknowledged that his ideas were only speculation, according to Sullivan, phones will soon be able to be carried around like a wristwatch, doing away with the necessity for buttons or dials.
He even foresaw the possibility that phones would eventually be able to translate languages in real-time and that users would be able to see one another while conversing. These concepts were outrageously futuristic in a time when rotary phones dominated communication. However, Sullivan’s prophecy seems accurate since contemporary cell phones now have voice-activated commands, video calls, and translation capabilities.
Mark Sullivan was not the only one who predicted smartphones
Sullivan was not alone in foreseeing the emergence of mobile communication. Many innovators and intellectuals throughout history have envisioned a society in which wireless, instantaneous communication is commonplace. The idea of a phonophore was first presented by German writer Ernst Jünger in his book Heliopolis, which he published in 1949.
Like modern smartphones, this fictitious gadget served as a portable universal communicator. In 1926, Nikola Tesla already envisioned a period in which people would be able to carry communication devices in their pockets, enabling real-time audio and video conversations with people around the world.