How the Loss of the Landline Is Changing Family Life

The shared phone was a space of spontaneous connection for the entire household

Image: Elzbieta Sekowska/Shutterstock/The Atlantic

By Julia Cho

My tween will never know the sound of me calling her name from another room after the phone rings. She’ll never sit on our kitchen floor, refrigerator humming in the background, twisting a cord around her…