According to the Wall Street Journal, the “percentage of adults [in the U.S.] who sleep with their cellphone” is 67% of men and 64% of women. Shockingly grim nocturnal statistics! Is there really this many nerds, work slaves, needy clingers, and devoted bureaucrats? The Wall Street Journal’s figures come from a recent Pew Research Center … Continue reading sleeping with a mobile phone
The evolutionary origin of the iPhone has recently been pushed back another million years. More specifically, scientists recently found evidence that hominini used tools about 3.4 million years ago. Dr. Zeresenay Alemseged, Curator of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences, explains: Tool use fundamentally altered the way our early ancestors interacted with nature, allowing … Continue reading evolutionary origins of the iPhone
Telephone traffic profiles by time of day at the beginning of the twentieth century provide evidence of work hours. Analyzing telephone traffic data, a telephone engineer with Chicago Telephone Company described the Chicago business day about 1902: In the Main office district in Chicago the business day may be said to have begun at 8.30 … Continue reading professional work hours circa 1900
Considering the merits of using automatic switches rather than human telephone operators to connect telephone calls, a Bell System technical expert in 1891 declared: experience and observation have united to show us that an operation as complex as that of uniting two telephone subscribers’ lines [connecting a telephone call] . . . can never efficiently … Continue reading underestimating intelligence at network edges
Just as trade is more likely to occur between parties less geographically distant, the same appears to be true for communication. In the U.S. telephone network about 1983, the share of calls within the local switching office averaged 66% for rural switching offices, compared to 31% for urban switching offices. The greater share of intra-office … Continue reading geographic communities of communication