In advertisements spanning the years between 1907 and 1958, the Bell System used emergencies as a key sales point to get people to buy telephones. Much of the usefulness of the telephone, as advertised, was that it was there, that it was watching over you. You weren't so much interacting as being guarded. The telephone, that magnificent instrument, was silently keeping you safe.
But it is in a dangerous crisis, when safety seems to hang upon a second, that the telephone is at its best. It is the instrument of emergencies, a sort of ubiquitous watchman. . . . And it is at such moments, if ever, that the users of a telephone can appreciate its insurance value. No doubt, if a King Richard III were worsted on a modern battlefield, his instinctive cry would be, “My Kingdom for a telephone!'
An advertisement from the 1910s has a drawing of a maiden in a nightdress nervously clutching her throat and looking anxiously out the windw. The text reads:
When You Need a Neighbor – or a doctor or assistance of any sort at any time, a reliable telephone is a friend in need.It is a time-saver when time is most valuable; often a life-saver in illness – a property-saver in fire or theft..But you cannot get the full service, value and benefit of a telephone unless you have a reliable telephone – buy and use only Standard “Bell” Apparatus and Equipment.
From the 1930s, there's an ad showing a picture of a little blond girl, arms innocently flung out in sleep. The narrative:
Sleep Soundly, Little Lady…Mother and Daddy are near and the telephone is always close by. It doesn’t go to sleep. All through the night it stands guard over you and millions of other little girls and boys.
There's much more of this. Fear sells. More to the point, this idea of the telephone guarding you is fascinating. You'd better get one, because you just … might … need it tonight.
The ties to the E911 controversy I've been focusing on are obvious. An important part of joining the telephony network was gaining the ability to tell other people when you were in trouble.
Here's the question: when someone uses an online application that doesn't look like a phone or (only) act like a phone but that does use telephone numbers, do they think they're being guarded?
Maybe not. Unless, of course, they're TOLD they're using a 'phone.'
I can't resist telling you that the word “phony” implies that a thing so qualified has no more substance than a telephone talk with a supposititious friend.
While you look up “supposititious,” I'm going to go buy another phone to watch over me.