“The problem with television is that people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn’t time for it.”

–The New York Times, 1939

As quoted by Tom Vanderbilt in his article for the Spring 2012 Wilson Quarterly on the introduction of the telephone in 1876. The whole article is interesting (I think legitimately so, and not just because I wrote for the telecoms industry for years).

Check it out: The Call of the Future (Wilson Quarterly).