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by itsamoreh 1336 days ago
"Television is more detrimental to humans than telephone ever was."

"Telephone is more detrimental to humans than radio ever was."

"Radio is more detrimental to humans than telegraph ever was."

2 comments

How is telephone and telegraph detrimental?
I believe the OP's point is that almost every new technology is greeted with accusations of being worse than what came before and what it's assumed it will replace, whether or not that actually proves to be the case. The examples may seem facetious, but they're all real.

I do think a case could be made that the changes in communication driven by the internet actually are different, but it's not the change itself, per se, as much as the speed of change. Pre-internet these changes were generational, and they generally took a generation (or more!) to be fully adopted and integrated into society. Now they're coming every decade or less, sweeping through the world in a matter of years.

My point is, I don't think people really said that about telephone and telegraph. Not every new technology was taken as being worse, so dismissing problems of Twitter just because it's new and "people hated everything new" isn't really good.
> I don't think people really said that about telephone and telegraph

A quick Google search will show that they did in fact say these things about the telephone and telegraph

> In 1858, People Said the Telegraph Was 'Too Fast for the Truth'

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/in-18...

> “The telephone is the instrument of the devil”

https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-us/history/communication/h...

I guess courriers and letters are next? Excess is detrimental.
What if it is, but you can’t tell any more, because you don’t know how the world looked without it?
History shows that there is constant, consistent progress no matter what technology people say will ruin everything.