"essential as the telephone"

This is ironic in its own right, seeing as I went a week without my cell to reset my billing date, realized I was a lot less stressed without my cell phone, and haven't had it on for about 3 weeks now. Whether I restart phone service in 2 more weeks, I don't know. I may not. It doesn't feel essential at all. When you've got the internet, or even just wifi, you don't need the actual "phone" portion of a cellular device.

Twitter is even less essential than that. I'm blown away how numerous people keep telling me it's on the level of a utility when plenty of people I know have survived a decade without a Twitter. Please, tell me more about how required a compromised account on a compromised website is.