James Gleick’s Upcoming Book Explores How the Telephone Changed Everything

Remember when making a phone call meant waiting for someone to finish using the family phone, stretching the curly cord as far as it would go, and hoping nobody picked up the other extension? If you were stuck with a party line, privacy was practically a luxury item. We have come a long way from those days, and James Gleick wants to remind us just how much the telephone changed our lives.

In his upcoming book, The Telephone: A New History, the bestselling author of Chaos and The Information explores how a device designed to carry voices along a wire transformed business, friendship, romance and the way we communicate.

The familiar story begins in 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell spoke the famous words, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” But here’s a twist I love: Bell didn’t even win the battle over how we answer the telephone. He preferred “ahoy,” while Thomas Edison championed “hello,” which eventually became the standard greeting. Imagine helping invent one of humanity’s most important devices only to lose the greeting contest!

Still, perhaps Bell deserves a consolation prize. The word ahoy lives on, and you can even find it on a packet of Chips Ahoy! Maybe Bell was munching on a chocolate-chip cookie when he came up with his preferred greeting. Probably not, but it’s a sweeter ending than losing to Edison.

The telephone gave us far more than busy signals, dial tones and late-night calls. It changed how we do business, maintain friendships and expect people to be available. I honestly think the telephone is one of the most important inventions humanity has ever created. Look at the device in your pocket today. We still call it a phone, but it’s really a computer, camera, library and communications centre rolled into one.

Yet its most breathtaking feature remains simple: within seconds, you can connect with someone thousands of kilometres away. Think about that for a moment. We tap a name, the phone rings, and someone on the other side of the world is suddenly right there. We’ve become so accustomed to this marvel that we barely stop to appreciate it.

I’m really looking forward to reading Gleick’s book and discovering more about the invention that changed how we connect with one another. Back then, if you wanted some peace and quiet, you could leave the receiver off the hook. Today, we carry a supercomputer in our pocket that can reach almost anyone on the planet in seconds, and we still can’t figure out how to get it to leave us alone!

Maybe I’ll try that old-fashioned trick anyway. Although, knowing my luck, I’ll knock the internet offline, lose my Wi-Fi and discover that the entire house depends on a little box with blinking lights. Who leaves a phone off the hook anymore? These days, we don’t disconnect from the world by hanging up. We switch on Do Not Disturb, ignore seventeen notifications, reject a call from an unknown number and call it self-care. Bell gave us the telephone, Edison gave us “hello,” and somewhere along the way, we turned the whole miracle into a machine we’re desperate to silence. Now that’s progress!