During the 1970s and 1980s, telephone answering machines became widely available in the United States. Their use immediately disrupted long-established patterns of interpersonal communication and self-presentation. While solving the temporal limitations and lopsided power of telephone calls, answering machines introduced a range of new techno-social problems. Significantly, they required callers to interact with a machine instead of a human being. The history of the household answering machine provides insight into how telephone users were habituated to changing communication norms during the closing decades of the 20th century. This study examines cultural responses to the answering machine during the 1970s and 1980s, drawing attention to the following three key themes: the perils of perpetual contact, mediated performances, and social surveillance. These themes would shape understandings of digital mediation and become defining characteristics of an emergent “participatory condition.”
