The telephone reinforced local ties instead of enabling distant communities.

Evidence

Many observers have theorized that the telephone fostered “psychological neighborhoods,” liberating our intimate social networks from the constraints of physical space. As early as 1891 one telephone official suggested that the technology would bring an “epoch of neighborship without propinquity.” In fact, however, the first comprehensive study of the social impact of the telephone (in 1933) found that this point-to-point medium (unlike the mass media) reinforced existing local ties more than distant ones. In the mid-1970s phone company records were said to show that between 40 and 50 percent of all phone calls originating from a household were made within a two-mile radius, and 70 percent were made within a five-mile radius. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 550

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Old telephony structure forced deliberate choices that modern devices erase. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 593; Individualization loosens ties with the near to enable ties with the distant — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 603

Broader Connections

• Old telephony structure forced deliberate choices that modern devices erase. #expands (0.82) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 593
• Individualization loosens ties with the near to enable ties with the distant #corroborates (0.78) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 603