Yesterday marked a monumental milestone in human history: the 150th anniversary of the telephone. On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell spoke the famous first words into his brilliant new contraption: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." It was a miracle of modern science. Suddenly, distance evaporated. Humanity was connected. Yet, if Bell were to somehow look down upon us from the great beyond today, he’d probably be deeply confused. He would see a world where we carry supercomputers in our pockets—devices millions of times more powerful than his original invention—and yet, we use them for absolutely everything except making a phone call.
To celebrate a century and a half of ringing, buzzing, and leaving voicemails nobody listens to, it is worth looking at the bizarre paradox the telephone has created in our modern lives. The very invention that was meant to bring us closer together has managed to reshape the modern workplace and absolutely terrify an entire generation.
The Commute for the Video Call
Let’s trace the lineage of Bell's glorious acoustic telegraph. The phone eventually gave us dial-up internet, which gave us broadband, which gave us the holy grail of the modern era: the video call. Without that first "Mr. Watson" moment, we would never have been able to endure the agonizing joy of a pixelated colleague telling us, "You're on mute, Dave."
Video calling was supposed to be the ultimate liberation. It proved that we didn't actually need to be physically tethered to a desk to be productive. For a few glorious years recently, humanity rejoiced in the "business on top, pajama pants on the bottom" lifestyle. We proved the technology worked.
But plot twist! Corporate nostalgia is a powerful force. In a beautifully ironic turn of events, the very technology that allowed us to work from anywhere is now being pushed aside so bosses can physically see us working from somewhere specific.
If you look at the current corporate landscape in Belgium, for instance, a staggering 16% of companies now expect their employees to drag themselves back to the physical office at least four days a week. We have invented the most sophisticated, seamless, real-time audio-visual communication network in the history of the universe—a network Bell couldn't have fathomed in his wildest dreams. And how do we use it? We sit in an hour of gridlocked traffic on the E40, march into a beige cubicle, put on noise-canceling headphones, and immediately log into a video call with a client who is sitting in their own beige cubicle three towns over.
We are commuting just to use the digital descendant of the telephone. You have to admit, the absurdity is almost poetic.
The Ringtone as a Live Grenade
While middle management is desperately trying to bring back watercooler chats, the younger generation is facing a much more visceral struggle with Bell's invention.
If you want to strike pure, unadulterated terror into the heart of a Gen Z youth, you don't need a horror movie. You just need to hand them a ringing phone.
"Telephobia" is a very real, very modern epidemic. To the youth of today, an incoming phone call is not an invitation to connect; it is an aggressive, unwarranted assault on their personal peace. Why? Because a phone call is an exercise in absolute chaos.
First, there is the total loss of control. When you text, you are the master of your domain. You can draft, delete, edit, obsess over the placement of a specific emoji, and hit send when you are perfectly ready. A phone call strips all of that away. It demands a real-time, instantaneous response. You cannot backspace a spoken sentence. If you say something awkward on a call, it simply hangs there in the digital ether, haunting you forever.
Second, there is the dread of the unknown caller. Back in the day, the ringing phone was an exciting mystery. Could it be a friend? A lover? A radio station giving away concert tickets? Today, if a number isn't saved in your contacts, a ringing phone feels like a threat. The youth look at an unknown caller ID with the same suspicion a medieval peasant might look at a flaming comet. Is it a scammer telling me the police are on their way? Is it the dentist? Is it a robot trying to sell me solar panels? To them, forcing someone into an impromptu, synchronous conversation without scheduling it via text first is a massive breach of etiquette. It’s the conversational equivalent of kicking down someone's front door instead of knocking. Bell shouted, "Mr. Watson, come here!" Today, Watson would simply watch the phone ring, let it go to voicemail, and then text back three hours later: "Hey, saw u called. What's up?"
A Toast to 150 Years
So, here is to the telephone on its 150th birthday. It is a gadget that fundamentally changed what it means to be human. It bridged oceans, won wars, and spawned the internet. It gave us the freedom to work from our couches, only for our employers to demand we bring our laptops back to the office anyway. And it evolved into a monolithic slab of glass that teenagers will use to stream 4K video, trade cryptocurrency, and navigate the globe—but will absolutely refuse to speak into.
Alexander Graham Bell probably didn't see any of this coming. But honestly? He'd probably just send a text about it anyway.
Cheers,
Peter