What an odd read. An argument was made that one piece of telephonic machinery is superior (in terms of human connection) to another. I'm sure someone published a similar article long ago saying that face to face chats are superior in many ways to those new fangled telephones. It will ruin the children! I do appreciate the design and technological differences in between cell phones and landlines that the author outlined, but I really don't buy his argument that humanity is worse off for the new predominance in cell phones. I still observe plenty of my peers still talking on the phone to family and friends, and they seem to have no more issues with call quality than someone with a landline. Text messaging and other apps that the author mentions are just other means of communication. The author comes off as well meaning but out of touch in this article.
Interesting read. I grew up with traditional phones (land lines, coiled plastic wires, plastic behemoths, big yellowing number pad, before internet, before email)--the very thing the author describes positively in this article (it being a physical, intimate thing, mouth pressed right against it, cradling it against your head) is one of the biggest things I disliked about traditional phones. It was gross, especially when you had to use a phone other people shared. Public telephones were the worst. One thing this article didn't touch upon is a fundamental reason why I hate the current state of cell phones: it's all voice and response, call history, incoming, outgoing... Google Voice is the best I've found, but even then it has a lot of failures (it's translation feature can be lacking). I'd prefer, if my phone is a small computer like an iPhone, that it handle the display of phone calls and messages in a completely different way than is currently standard, for people whose brains are more visual than auditory. Pagers, though--anyone remember pagers?
