This essay made me think – I watched a movie the other day, and like all movies set before the ~late nineties, the characters relied on landline phones and didn

This essay made me think – I watched a movie the other day, and like all movies set before the ~late nineties, the characters relied on landline phones and didn’t have texting or any immediate forms of communication available. You had to make a phone call and if no one answered, that was it. You had to just wait around until they called you back. It made me wonder if we will ever not live in a world in which instantaneous communication is the default — and subsequently what is expected by everyone. I think it’s possible, but only as a deliberate stepping back, away from the expectations of instant replies, as a social movement. It would need to be a mass social movement in the 60s sense.