Old telephony structure forced deliberate choices that modern devices erase.

Evidence

Before I got older and started carrying around a heavy black rectangle of potentiality and dread, it worked like this: You thought about the call you needed to make, you went to the phone made the call, and then you walked away. If you decided you had something more to say, you called back later. Not only that, the interaction was with the one other person you had decided to contact. Even calling someone to chat aimlessly had more intention than many of the ways I communicate now. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 593

Categorization

• XREF: Exemplifies the book’s pattern of finding redemption and meaning in obsolete tech, echoing the reader’s interest in the not-withdrawal reading. — connects to: The telephone reinforced local ties instead of enabling distant communities. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 550