Tom Standage, author of The Victorian Internet, would argue (and I tend to agree) that the telegraph system was the first social network: https://en.wikipedia.

Tom Standage, author of The Victorian Internet, would argue (and I tend to agree) that the telegraph system was the first social network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet I especially liked Chapter 8, "Love over the Wires".