The march of technology in Tehama County – Red Bluff Daily News

In last week's column, I wrote about the evolution of television and the role technology has played in following all kinds of sports. In 1958, I was thrilled to see one baseball game of the week on a 13-inch black and white TV. If I have the financial means today, I can watch virtually every single sporting event in the world, including my personal favorite, Corn Hole, on a flat-screen TV the size of a garage door. Boy, that's progress, isn't it?

You might be surprised to learn that I actually helped introduce the computer to Tehama County. In 1964, at the age of 19, Bruce Sale and I were caretakers at the Diamond International Corporate Offices on Diamond Avenue.

I'm not sure why, but along with staff members Cherry Smith Mealer, Helen Robson, Plant Comptroller CC "Red" Caylor, and Plant President Bill Jones, Bruce and I attended a weekend seminar where we discussed a brand new Wiz Bang informed computers larger than a caravan. This fool spat out punch card after punch card and probably didn't deliver the amount of information that is on the only iPhone I have on me today.

Both Bruce and I completed this class much faster than any Diamond representative in the class, including the company's Big Wheels. At least that's how I remember it.

When I was working in the parole department in 1968, we were still using manual typewriters along with a huge copier that had to be fed in page by page with carbon paper. During this process, an employee had to stand and shuffle paper all day as we prepared copies for legal proceedings.

I can still remember when we got our first integrated telephone system in the late 1970s, which allowed each officer to have his own line. A few years later we were able to add an answering machine component to our system.

It was in the early 90s before we got our first computers. We mainly used them as word processors. I worked for the California Board of Corrections in the late 1990s and it was there that I learned what a truly integrated information system can actually do.

The very first cell phone was introduced in 1976. It was large and bulky, and offered little to the world other than being able to lug it around in the open air. It was 1992 when IBM released the smartphone that changed your world and mine forever. Today, 77% of Americans own a smartphone and 95% own a cell phone of one type or another.

Growing up in Mayberry, I knew little and cared less about what was going on in the outside world. My two-channel television barely covered the day's news in the North State and Walter Cronkite, preferring to cover the news rather than doing it. My current TV package has 450+ channels that cover everything and everyone but the giants, warriors, and kings, but don't get me started.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to faint on a cruise ship. While quarantined in my cabin for 72 hours, my only activity was watching the day's news on the only two stations offered, Fox News and CNN. While the subject was often the same, the versions offered by the right leaning station in no way coincided with the left version of the same story.

While television regularly offers up-to-date, albeit politically-inclined, versions of the same facts, I think social media platforms are even more harmful to society than the 24/7 propaganda Fox News and CNN offer.

A look at the 15 best social media platforms in the world includes Facebook, You Tube, What's App, Facebook Messenger, We Chat (China), Instagram and Tik Tok (China). QQ (China), Sinus Web (China), Zone (China) Reddit, Kuhishou (China), Snap Chat, Pinterest and Twitter. We are well on the way as the only way to communicate was over a telephone line with three participants.

In my opinion, Facebook was and is the most destructive social media tool. Currently, more than 2.8 billion people follow Facebook, with 2.5 billion signing up every day.

If you have enough time, you can have up to 5,000 Facebook “friends”. Who else has 5,000 friends besides John Growney? I have four and I don't even like three of them.

I mostly use the wasted time I spend on Facebook every day to make what I think funny comments on other people's posts. Sometimes I wish others a happy birthday even though I really don't care about their birthday. I've even met the applause emoji on occasion when someone reports that their 8 year old grandchild finally made a poop in the toilet. What I don't do is talk about politics.

Until about a decade ago, politics was mostly something that was discussed one-on-one or in small groups. For some reason that I don't understand, men and women who are otherwise smart, capable, and contributing members of their community feel compelled to use Facebook as a platform to share their dislike of those who do not share their political views. Just because we don't share the same view of the world doesn't mean you're automatically right or I'm automatically wrong. It means we believe what we believe, and that's all it means.

Believe what you believe, but please don't look down on me for what I believe. Please don't offend me for having opinions that differ from yours. We're friends for God's sake. BTW, congratulations on your grandchild who defecated in the toilet for the first time.

Bill Cornelius is a lifelong Red Bluff resident, retired chief probation officer, state theater champion, and exceptional athlete. He can be reached at bill.cornelius@sbcglobal.net.

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