I'm increasingly sure we'll eventually have a different medium by which we communicate with every person in our lives. I've one brother who sends me Facebook messages, one brother who always messages me on Google+ and one who likes to interact with me on Untappd, which he signed me up for when we were in a bar one night. I like to think he is hanging on my every craft-beer review because he remains pretty much my only follower on UnTappd. I'm composing those rare little gems for his ear alone, which I rather like.
My brother now has the grown-up version of the letters we experimented with when we were children: those messages written in lemon-juice "invisible ink"; nothing to say, really, certainly nothing to hide, but an endeavour shared between us.
He mentioned, somewhat wryly, that his boss follows him on UnTappd, and it's easy to see this as some sort of invasion of privacy, as a loss wrought by social media; although arguably it's just a new, and more easily evaded, incarnation of a long-standing convention.
Bosses have a history of watching employees drink. Sometimes they watched over them at lunch, and liquor was often used as a form of payment. The backbreaking work of laundresses in England's first commercial laundries was often partly paid in beer.
One of the earliest records of salary being transferred is a cuneiform clay tablet believed to be from about 3100 BC. The symbol for the daily beer rations of workers in Mesopotamia is shown as a jar with a pointed base. Had they possessed an app with which to rate their beer, I like to think the Mesopotamians' archeological record would show thousands of entries saying, "No idea, really. Beer fell over again; not quite sure why this is legal tender?"
The difference now is that while, yes, my brother's boss does have the option of watching him drink, my brother has the option of posting what he drinks, one beer a month if he chooses, and that beer won't fall over.
All these platforms can be more curtain than stage. I have a friend with whom I "Yo." What that means is, from time to time, the Yo app on my phone shouts "Yo" at me, and the word "Yo" pops and tells me it's her, as if I didn't know, and I send her a "Yo" back.
I swear, when I see her, it's like we've never been apart. The meaning of the "Yo" changes according to the context in which it's sent, mostly according to the news of the day, which we both follow quite closely. I know an earnest "Yo." from an excited "Yo!" from a "Yo …" that screams "Can you believe it?"
A lot of this is about timing, at which my friend excels. She is the great Yo-rator of our time. When Yo was launched in April, 2014, a lot of people signed up, mostly ironically. Yo was, of course, mocked – in large part by the generation that lost its mind over the hula hoop. Finding the pinnacle of millennial folly has become boomer Everest; their passion is that intense, many will die doing it, and it may not be the highest mountain.
I, on the other hand, quite like a fad, those little festivals of belonging, and social media is entirely festive – masks are worn, everything is overstated, and no one understands this better than the participants.
It's said that 100 million Yos were sent by the September following the app's launch, but now I sense that no one but my friend and I still use it; Yo may well be our own private app island.
I text frequently with another friend, I direct-message on Twitter as well, and my mother still phones me. She leaves messages and everything, and every time I hear my ring, I think, "Who does that? Who phones a phone?" I find her messages days later in the "voice mail" cave, and I know I must go spelunking for them.
There are people whose job it is to track the demographics of who is using what technology and in what way. To that research, I'll add my one observation on this matter: Over 75 per cent of all the e-mail I receive that is "Sent from an iPad" comes from senders named "Dorothy," a name overdue for a comeback.
I've a friend who sends Facebook stickers – which I thought I'd never do, but eventually I responded in kind and now I'm some sort of Sticker Store Junkie.
Another friend once told me that he always checks Instagram over breakfast, and I try to leave him a little something to say "Good morning" when I can.
Last week, Google announced a new chat app called Allo. It has a number of features – including "Smart reply," which provides Inbox-style automatically suggested responses – intended to set it apart in the already crowded field of instant-messaging apps made by Google.
I've been enjoying reading these same proffered responses on my mail, but I never send them; too many exclamation marks, Inbox, and I get it, Inbox, you eager-to-please e-mail program, you: You are reading my e-mail and offering to help me answer. You see the words "parents" and "children" and "park" and "pink leash" and "coconut water" in one e-mail, and you suggest "Very nice," "So cute!" and "Love it!" as responses.
Well, good for you, Inbox, but what about the words "defanged" "blood sausage" and "oxygen tank," also in that excellent story? Why were they not factored in? Why did you filter out "wheezing," Inbox? I'm not calling for an end to reading my e-mail. I'm just asking for a more subtle reading of my e-mail.
The big selling point of Allo is the integrated Google assistant, a sort of helpful chatbot that offers advice, maps and links, as well as miscellaneous information such as updates on your scheduled flights. If a friend suggests meeting for Thai food, nearby Thai restaurants will pop up for me. I can then choose to share that list in the conversation and we'll be linked to OpenTable to check availability, if all goes well.
We're living in a golden age of communication platforms. It's almost like seeing the world being mapped again, with ourselves as the masses. Such mysterious islands are being visited, borders shift, mountains are crossed, we chart, and perhaps we learn as we go.