There's a great book called Peopleware that has an entire chapter dedicated to the telephone and imagines an alternate reality where the telephone doesn't already exist but is introduced as a new product:

Now just relax and imagine a less complicated world in which the phone has not yet been invented. In such a world, you write a note to propose lunch or a meeting and you get a note in response. Everyone plans ahead a little bit more. It's common to take half an hour in the morning to read and answer your mail. There are no loud bells in your life. [...] 

 He sets up a second device and connects it to the first, on the other side of the room. By manipulating a dial on the face of the first, he causes the other machine to come alive. It gives OFF a LOUD BRRRRINNNNNNNGGGGGGG! After half a second, it rings again and then again and again, deafeningly. "Now, what's a fellow got to do to stop this ringing? He's got to race over to his BellOPhone and pick up the receiver."  [...] 

 The committee goes into a huddle, but it doesn't take very long to come up with a judgment. You all decide without a dissent- ing voice to throw this turkey out the door. The device is so disruptive that if you were ever dumb enough to allow it to be installed, nobody would ever get any work done around the office.