A Longing for the Lost Landline - The New York Times

Landlines provided connections that were stable and seemed real, in contrast to cellphone conversations, with their enervating interruptions because of lost reception. The cellphone introduced redialing, sometimes multiple times. The time lost (and the arguments engendered) through frustrating attempts to reconnect is incalculable.

In the landline world there was down time. You left the house, you looked around, you sawpeople, you daydreamed, you got lost, you found your way again, you gazed from the train window at lines of poplars swaying in the mist. Time drifted. It was not raw material for the extraction of productivity. It stretched away, an empty canvas.

Experience occurred, not as a thing to be rated with stars, nor as the prelude to a request for feedback. Sidewalks were not an obstacle course around people absorbed by smartphones. Posture was better. Heads were not bowed in contemplation of thumbs. The end of landlines has been bad for necks. It has been bad for the bonds that form the commons.

People knew where they were in relation to other places on a map. They had their bearings. They were not blue-dot zombies in motion on a navigation system. They could remember landline phone numbers. Kids did not have play dates, they had neighborhoods. In those neighborhoods they played with neighbors’ children. They were not tracked minute by minute.

With landlines came punctuality. You made an appointment, you stuck to it, there was none of the flaky something-better-to-do elasticity constant contact facilitates. Let’s face it, lateness is rude.

Days had more structure, planning more meaning. I remember my son asking me how I managed to meet anyone in the pre-cellphone era. I could hardly remember. I said you arranged to meet a friend at a certain place at a certain time and you showed up. He was skeptical.

It’s a self-regarding age. People are lost in digital labyrinths that are distracting without being satisfying, stimulating without bringing contentment. The holidays are coming — a time for community, a time to let time meander, to have long conversations; a time to eat rum-doused fruitcake, laugh, kick back, and to heck with the president’s next tweet.

Source: The New York Times

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