When it comes to society as a whole, one of its founding building blocks is communication. Communication is how we as a species can socialize, learn from, and collaborate with each other to the global extent that we are used to now. One of the most pivotal inventions when it comes to communicating is the ballpoint pen, leaping forward our writing potential from the day it was invented to now and likely many more years to come.
The ballpoint pen was invented in 1938 by László Bíró in Hungary. Unlike other forms of writing at the time, Bíró's innovation allowed for convenient, fast, and efficient writing. Let's take a quill for example. The ink on a quill not only takes much longer to dry as opposed to a ballpoint pen but is also harder to write efficiently than the more modern counterpart. By far one of the most vital aspects of this invention is the fact that people finally could write down their ideas instantly and with speed. This allowed for a massive breakthrough in information and writing, greatly affecting society as a whole for the better. There is very few innovations when it comes to communication as paramount and impactful as the ballpoint pen.
The impact of the ballpoint pen doesn't just end here, however, as not only is it much more efficient but also more portable, which greatly aided with their success. One of the main problems with quills was their lack of portability, at least compared to their more modern counterpart. You could put a ballpoint pen in your pocket with little to no problem, which allowed for writing to not only take place at home or in the library, but virtually anywhere and everywhere where there's paper without any trouble whatsoever.
Most people have more than one ballpoint pen somewhere in their bookbags, purses, or pockets at any present moment a good indicator of the importance of portability when it comes to communication. Another example is the iPhone, which succeeded because it took portable communication to the next level. I argue that being able to communicate virtually anywhere was just as crucial to the iPhone's success as their innovations in talking to whoever you want at a farther distance than any before.
While it is paramount for society, there have been detriments to the ballpoint pen. One of the most dire is their negative impact on the environment, contributing to pollution more than the quill pen. While this is a problem, there are personally a lot worse and less impactful products out there that are contributing a lot more to environmental degradation than the ballpoint pen.
Overall, there is no stressing the impact that the ballpoint pen brought upon us all. If this innovation in communication were not to exist, we simply would not be at the level of progress that we are now. There is simply no understating how vital fast, efficient, and portable is to our society and it only is proven more and more as ballpoint pens are still massively prevalent around the globe.
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