Same old story: On non-use and resistance to the telephone and social media

•Focusing on non-use reveals interesting new insights into the shaping of the functions of the telephone and social media.•The discussion regarding the concerns with social media is a repetition that stems back a 100 years since the telephone.•Privacy concerns have existed since the beginning of communication technology and are still the major concern.

The growing resistance to social media is not a unique story. The telephone, which today is embraced almost completely, was a matter of concern for many. Most people that resisted the phone had privacy concerns and seemed to have intuited the breakdown between distinct spaces like established private space and public space as a threat to psychological integrity. By zooming in on the particular concerns people had at the dawn of the telephone's birth and its early development new light can be shed on the contemporary discussion surrounding social media today.