Land-lines

Full disclosure:  I don't have a land-line, and haven't for quite some time.   Cell phones come with a variety of conveniences, but they have not yet matched the audio quality of old-style copper.   That's one thing I miss.   I often tell people that my phone does everything very well, except make calls.    In junior high school, during the summer, my friends and I would call each other and watch TV together - if something interesting was on - sharing commentary over the phone.   I can't imagine making long calls like that on a cell.     That kind of long-duration, reliable telepresence just isn't possible given the kind of call quality I usually have to work with.

Virginia Heffernan:

Sound signals, so unfaithful to the original they hardly seem to count as reproductions, come through shallow. You can hardly recognize voices. Fragile, fleeting connections shatter in the wind. You don’t know when to talk and when to pause; voices overlap unpleasantly. You no longer have the luxury to listen for over- and undertones; you listen only for content. Calls have become transactional, not expressive.

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