https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...
It is about the human and cultural impact of the telegraph as much as the technology. The telegraph enabled instant communication, and when the first undersea cables were laid in the mid-1800s, that communication stretched from one continent to another. This changed many things.
One of my favorite chapters is "Love on the Lines", about the telegraph operators who flirted with each other in Morse code and even got married "on line".
https://tomstandage.wordpress.com/books/the-victorian-intern...
But at best, they had an incredibly rosy view of what was going on. E.g., looking back, a Twitter founder claims that in 2006 everyone "was cool": https://twitter.com/rasmus_kleis/status/974552443789836288
Given Gabriel's theory, that's obvious bunk. And having talked to some online community pioneers, abuse started pretty much from the get go. Look at all the replies I got when I brought it up on Twitter, for example. Story after story of early experiences of trolling, abuse, etc: https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/974847531317211136
There was (and is) a strong strain of technoutopianism, where we take the shiny new possibility and project a perfect future onto it. This goes back at least as far as the introduction of the telegraph, which many thought would bring about world peace: https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...
As Neiwart documents, though, many of the terrible people online today are intellectual descendants of the terrible people who were doing their social networking in person and via the mail: https://www.amazon.com/Alt-America-Rise-Radical-Right-Trump/...
It's part of a persistent strain of technoutopianism. You might read Tom Standage's excellent 1998 book "The Victorian Internet", which talks about the adoption of the telegraph during the Victorian era. Many of the same things people said about the Internet's power to change society were said about the telegraph: https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...
https://technicshistory.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/an-expediti...
And if you like this, I recommend The Victorian Internet:
https://tomstandage.wordpress.com/books/the-victorian-intern...
https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...
https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...
It covers the history of the telegraph and the changes that came with it. Lot of good historical perspective with regard to communication over large distances.
[0] http://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteen...
[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Turk-Eighteenth-Century-Chess-Play...
[2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Neptune-File-Astronomical-Pioneers...
http://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteen...
That's one of my favorite books (and finally available in a Kindle edition!). Don't take my word for it, read a few of the reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Victorian-Internet/dp/B002STNBKM/
More stories of high tech in the 1800's in Neal Stephenson's Mother Earth Mother Board:
http://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteen...
People with two or more computers were always finding ways to connect them before the internet. Networking protocols were a dime a dozen in the 70s and 80s. The idea that people would never hit on the idea of a protocol over telephone wires is not particularly compelling.
It's like saying if the Wrights had not invented controlled, powered flight in 1903 we'd still not have airplanes. (It would probably have been accomplished by other people by 1908 or so, 1910 at the latest.)
The internet was just one step in a long line of digital telecommunications networks, starting with telegraphy. See "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage
https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...