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owl [soylentnews.org] writes:

Telegrams were the first instant messages, allowing people to send short notes rapidly over long distances. Telegraphy was developed in the 19th century and tweets were created about 150 years later, but despite the vast time difference, they were received and critiqued in strikingly similar ways.

Some early reactions to telegrams included one 1858 commentary in The New York Times calling them “superficial, sudden, unsifted” and likely to “render the popular mind too fast for the truth.” The exact same criticisms have been leveled at social media today. In both cases, the short, character-constrained nature of the messages was seen as a problem, leading to a lack of depth and context.

Original Submission