> Before then, you'd talk to people face-to-face, (or using smoke signals) so I'd imagine if we looked through some newspapers when telephones first came in, we'd probably see this exact same post.

That's the exact same point I was trying to make to one of my colleagues when she saying that relying on Facebook to communicate with your friends is a mistake, while phone conversations are the way to go. I was telling her that my grandma was looking at a telephone as the work of the devil, not that she was religious or anything, just that the unexpected ringing of it would stop any hardworking people from doing their job so that it would only be a waste of time and resources. My friend wasn't convinced, she was asking me "but how could your grand-mother live without a telephone?".

But, as others have noted, there is something to be said about the more personal nature of a telephone call. Also, we don't broadcast what we had for lunch to our friends and family via telephone. I think it's this shallow, group-level contact that the author is targeting, not necessarily one-on-one messaging, although "pixels" are undeniably less personal than voice, which is arguably less personal than face-to-face contact.

I bet it was fairly rare for an adult to spend 8 hours a day on the telephone when it first came out.

The internet in the 2000s is a much, much richer medium than telephone calls in the 1900s. Look at us - integrating throughout or taking time from our day to discuss and debate the news here, online.

In the UK 8 mins was a family issue due to the bills.