FEAR OF TELEPHONES...

It seems ridiculous to think that people felt this way once but....Yes, when the landline telephone was first introduced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was widely considered dangerous by a skeptical public. People feared physical harm from electricity, structural dangers from infrastructure, and even psychological or social threats.  A friend's grandmother wouldn't use the telephone during thunderstorms!

(Click on the photo for a page of phones available from the 1916 Sears catalog, lovingly scanned by your editor.  See the whole catalog here.)

To explore this historical telephone anxiety further, you can read an account via The Atlantic's history of telephone fears.

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