> We did, and yet people did still often just come over unannounced, to the point that it that the unannounced visit - which was common enough to be believable, but not always welcome

The question is, what exactly is the relevance of mobile vs. non-mobile phones?

I think it really depends on the walking distance. If someone is your neighbor, there's not a lot of effort saved from calling or texting first.

Going back to the OP, these are two very different things: "you can just text them… or not even bother and check their socials to see what impression of a life they’re presenting today."

As far as one-to-one communication is concerned, a landland call is just as good as a mobile call or a text. But social media addiction is an entirely different matter. That's not even about announced vs. unannounced visits but rather about living in the real world vs. living in a virtual world.

> was a frequent plot point in various media.

I'm not sure that citing fiction is useful.

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vidarh an hour ago | parent [-]

I explained the relevance of mobile phones to you.

People are not always at home.

Without a mobile phone you had an excuse.

Now you don't really.

It doesn't even matter whether or not you were actually home - there was less of a social expectation to always call because it was a recognised excuse that you "were in the neighborhood" and implicitly had no way to check without dropping by.

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lapcat an hour ago | parent [-]

I already responded to this point at length here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49892375 but in brief: on this interpretation, mobile phones should actually result in more successful drop-bys, because you can call or text when you're "in the neighborhood". Thus, mobile phones are not an excuse to avoid home visits.

	▲	vidarh 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You're still missing the point entirely: A lot of those visits are not wanted and weren't wanted to the point that unwanted visits were a trope in media. Before they would happen because we had no ways to stop them until someone was at the door with a plausible excuse.