I got no strings
I laughed when I first got to the 1906 National Phonograph Co. ad on page 77 of _Always Already New_. "When a man leaves home in the evening it is because he seeks amusement. The best way to keep him home is to give him the amusement there." The message, aimed mainly at the lady of the house I'm guessing: Keep 'em home and entertained with the Edison Phonograph. I can't imagine the image of a rope tying a man to a house having any appeal to a guy. I then thought of the famous iPod ads - the string in these illustrations is merely an illustration of the music getting piped in directly to your head. This tie doesn't bind you to your house, you're now free to go anywhere with your own personalized soundtrack. Once new media was meant to keep us at home, but now it frees us to go wherever we please, entertained all the while. And now that parents can get shopping carts equipped with dvd players (available now at Mejier!), the next generation of media consumers is getting used to having visual entertainment whenever they like. I suppose now we need autopilot for our cars so we can safely watch movies while driving...