Michael Regilio

There were also fears it would spread misinformation and gossip.

Newspapers and clergy warned that the telephone would accelerate rumors and lies, allowing falsehoods to travel faster than the truth.

Maybe that sounds a little familiar.

Absolutely.

So people were super freaked out about the telephone.

They thought it would collapse social hierarchies and destroy privacy.

Do you know what a party line was?

For one, yes, that is exactly what a party line was back in the 90s.

And I'm a little embarrassed to admit I called a few times.

Yeah, they're praying that you go behind your parents back and stick them with the bill.

And it probably was a pretty good business model.

But no, we both have the right idea.

But party lines go back way further than the 1990s.

And they were not for socializing.

They were actually necessity.

See, in the early days of the telephone, people used party lines, meaning multiple households shared the same connection.

And people would get freaked out.

Critics were warning that eavesdropping would become normal, which I'm guessing it probably did if you could hear what the neighbors were talking about on the phone.

People claimed that the telephone would rot the brain and shorten attention spans.

Some people argued that these new rapid disembodied conversations overstimulated the mind and made people impatient with slower forms of communication.