15 Interesting Things You Probably Didn’t Know About the Telephone

These days, it’s almost unimaginable to leave home without your phone. You could leave your keys or wallet but will never feel as stressed out as you would if you forgot your phone.

It has come to the point that society has become so dependent on their phones that it feels like a part of their being. And it’s understandable when you think about how these mobile devices are our connection to the world. For those of you who love your phone and cannot imagine life without it, we’ve got 15 fascinating facts about telephones that will blow your mind, make you giggle, gasp, and maybe even appreciate your phone more:

  1. Alexander Graham Bell is credited with the development of the first phone. He wanted the standard greeting for answering the phone to be ‘ahoy-hoy.’ Had Thomas Edison not stepped in and suggest ‘hello,’ we’d probably all be answering our phones with ‘Ahoy’ today!
  2. Cellphones have more bacteria than toilet handles.
  3. Did you know that there’s an irrational fear of being without your mobile phone? This phobia is called nomophobia. According to Psychology Today, 66% of adults suffer from it, and one in five people would rather go a full week without shoes than take a break from their phone.
  4. A study found that 47% of all water-damaged phones in the UK were caused by people dropping their phones in the toilet.
  5. The first text message ever sent was ‘Merry Christmas.’
  6. Bell’s motivation for developing the phone and revolutionizing communications was thanks to his deep connection with the deaf community, of which his mother was a part of. In fact, his wife Mabel Gardiner Hubbard had been completely deaf since age five.
  7. Mark Twain was among the first people to have a phone in their home.
  8. Ever own a Droid phone by Verizon? Did you know the word ‘droid’ is a certified trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd.? So when Verizon launched its Droid line, it had to pay Mr. Lucas a hefty amount to use the name.
  9. The first coin-operated pay phone that was in installed in Hartford, Connecticut in 1889.
  10. According to the U.S. Health Department, 50.8 percent of American households have gone wireless and no longer use landline phone services.
  11. Ever own a Nokia? Did you know that its tone for receiving SMS text messages is actually Morse code for ‘SMS’?
  12. The world’s first commercially-available cell phone was the Motorola DynaTAC. It was the size of a payphone, weighed 1.75 pounds, and had a 30-minute talk time limit. It cost a whopping $3,995 to use!
  13. Issued in 1878, the first phone book ever was only 20 pages long.
  14. To date, the most expensive mobile phone in the world was worth $15.3 million. The Black Diamond iPhone 5 is covered in black diamonds, gold, and gems.
  15. The most profitable invention in U.S. history is the telephone.

At PayPerCall, we’re taking America’s most loved invention and helping savvy entrepreneurs turn telephone calls into profits. Give us a call today and find out how.

Written by

The Industry Leader in Billing Callers for Phone Services

You may also like...