Half Duplex Please!

Remember Citizens Band radio?  The way it worked was that you pushed the transmit button on your radio and talked and when you were done, then you released the button and listened.  Then supposedly the person with whom you were communicating would push his transmit button and talk.  The key point here is that you had to take turns.  This was a necessity because you were both using the same channel and that channel was "half duplex", a term in communication theory that means there's only one channel for both transmitting and receiving.  Modern day cell phones are "full duplex".  They use one channel to transmit and a different one to receive so you can talk and listen at the same time, more like normal face-to-face communication.  So, is this full duplex an improvement or not?  I contend that it depends on who you are communicating with.  If you are talking to someone who is polite and waits for a pause to speak, it is probably an improvement but if they are a person who is so impatient that they can't wait to let you finish speaking (one that I describe as listening with their mouth) then full duplex is worse than half duplex. 

In the early days of radio, one would use the word "over" to let the other person know when it was their turn to talk.  Maybe we should start doing this again even on full duplex channels. 

All this reminds me of the wonderful scheme used by many native tribes to maintain control during tribal or inter-tribal meetings.  They used a small rounded stone called the "talking stone" and only when it was in your possession were you allowed to speak.  Since there was only one talking stone, only one person at a time could speak.  Today we're supposed to use Robert's Rules of Order. 

Always try to remember not to listen with your mouth!  Can anyone talk with their ears?  I guess that means either you want to learn something or you don't have an opinion.

Comments

[Tracy Hausfeld]

I think the smartest people are the ones that listen. Imagine how much you can learn by listening to other people! I listen to my patients all the time! They teach me alot! I agree Dad! xo Tracy