As noted in an earlier chapter, Henry David Thoreau’s reaction to the telegraph boom that followed Morse’s 1844 demonstration was to remark that we’re so eager to build a line between Maine and Texas that we never stopped to ask why these two states needed to be connected in the first place. Though dated in its particulars, this same sentiment applies well to our current age of social media and smartphones. First Facebook, then the iPhone: compulsive communicating and connecting—supported by mysterious, almost magical innovations in radio modulation and fiber-optic routing—swept our culture
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Because the closeted queer kid in Nowhere, Alabama desperately needs the ability to connect with other people like them
