1. This @amandamull call to revive the culture of, well, calling is really great: theatlantic.com/health/archive…
@amandamull 2. It made me remember that early phone monopolies resisted using the serious, expensive device for mere “sociability” or for “frivolous” calls. It was ordinary consumers who turned the phone into a prime instrument of sociability.
@amandamull 3. Multiparty lines—which brought the new technology to the working classes on an economical basis—gave this a whole new dimension, allowing “rubbering” from nosy neighbors. “You got better programs on it than you ever did on the radio,” one farmer reminisced.
@amandamull 4. New technologies always bring new social opportunities—but they’re rarely the ones that their inventors or commercializers imagine. (Leaning on @robotnik’s great history of telephony here.)
