Bill Sohl wrote:

The value of the Leno
Sjow contest was the publicity for ham radio. Beyond
that, it was just a mildly interesting win for the hams.
Other than that, what else does the morse vs text
messaging contest win "account for"?

Actually, Bill, I think the main focus of the Leno show
contest and its Australian predecessor wasn't ham radio
at all.

There's a certain mindset that automatically connects
"newer" with "faster/better/easier". There's even a
word for it: "neophilia", meaning unreasonable love
of new things.

The Leno clip shows that mindset in action in the way
the woman being interviewed by Jay Leno immediately
assumes text messaging will be faster than Morse Code.
You also see it in the way the audience agrees. Text
messaging is more than 150 years newer than Morse code -
it must be faster, right?

Of course Jay knows the outcome is almost certain to be
very different - that's the whole point of the segment.
And when the Morse Code team wins the contest, the
point is clear: Newer isn't always better, and old isn't
always bad or useless.

--

There was a segment on the NPR radio quiz show "Wait, Wait,
Don't Tell Me" on May 14, in which a caller was asked to
identify the one true story out of three. One story
was about the Australian text-vs.-Morse contest, and the other
two were made-up along the lines of a new product having some
surprising characteristics, like tomatoes that were flammable.
(The caller got it right).

73 de Jim, N2EY