Whenever a new technology comes along that creates a revolutionarily new means of communication or amusement, the young glom onto it and their elders,

#62. A Brief History of Moral Panics Concerning Kids and Their Chosen Media

submited by

Style Pass

2025-01-09 11:30:04

Whenever a new technology comes along that creates a revolutionarily new means of communication or amusement, the young glom onto it and their elders, or a highly vocal group of them, believe it is leading to the wreck and ruin of the young. A term commonly applied to such reactions is moral panic.

I’m not completely comfortable with the term moral panic, but I’ll use it because it’s used regularly by historians and social scientists who study this phenomenon. The phenomenon is not really “ panic” in the sense of what happens when a crowded theater catches fire. It’s a persistent and often gradually growing worry or fear about damage to the young done by the new media. It arises out of a natural, one might even say healthy, neophobia on the part of those who have lived well into adulthood without the new media, combined with an equally natural and benevolent desire to protect the young. Something new, which has never been experienced before in the history of humanity, might be dangerous; and it might be especially dangerous for kids because we view kids (rightly or wrongly) as more fragile and vulnerable than adults.

The “ moral” part of moral panic enters in two ways. Most such panics in the past were concerned with moral corruption of the young. The media were seen as inciting violence, crime, sexual promiscuity, and/or disrespect for social institutions and conventions. The most recent panic, to be discussed in later letters, but also see here, however, concerns kids’ mental wellbeing more than morals.