Random Times When Everyone Freaked Out About New Technology in History (9 items)

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  (#9) 2015 New York Times Article Led Some to Believe Tech Wearables Cause Cancer

  Wearable technology is constantly being promoted as the future, but before the first smart watch even hit the shelves there was fear that wearable tech would have a negative impact on our health. Once again, the New York Times led the charge in criticizing new technology, publishing an article that seemed to suggest smart watches could cause health issues like cancer. Slate’s Phil Plait was quick to respond and point out that there is still no reliable evidence that suggests wearable technology causes any form of cancer - or any other illness for that matter. The New York Times amended the article with multiple editor's notes, as well as a headline change, admitting the original ("Could Wearable Computers Be as Harmful as Cigarettes?") "went too far in suggesting any such comparison."
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  (#8) Author Attacks Virtual Reality Back in 1992

  Virtual reality has only become available on a widespread consumer level of late, but the fear of this technology extends back more than two decades. “If you are in a virtual world and you have a model of your office and you pick up a virtual shotgun and blow your boss away because it might be amusing, then does that blur the line between activities you do in fantasy and the activities you do in real life,” questioned author Howard Rheingold in 1992.

  It’s a concept that lives on even today. There is a widespread concern that virtual reality will cause people to live out violent fantasy which, in theory, would encourage them to carry out those behaviors in their real lives. Other fears of virtual reality fall in line with the usual critique of new technology—a negative impact on social skills and on the overall intelligence of its users.
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  (#7) Authors Coined the Phrase "Computerphobia" in the 1990s

  Today, almost everyone has a computer in their pocket, but when these machines were first introduced they spread a wave of panic and fear at a rapid pace. This fear of computers was so severe that “computerphobia” became an actual term. A 1996 book titled Women and Computers even explains the variety of phobias that surrounded computer. According to the text, “computerphobia” included everything from the “fear of physically touching the computer or of damaging what’s inside it” to “a reluctance to read or talk about computers.” The book also discusses the crippling fear of believing computers could replace people or enslave society as a whole.
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  (#2) The New York Times Attacked the Telephone in the Late 1800s

  We now live in a world where five minutes without a cellphone seems like an eternity, so it’s hard to imagine that at one point many people wanted nothing to do with telephones at all.

  When telephones were introduced in the late 1800s, the New York Times was quick to attack. The paper’s critique of the technology included the suggestion that telephones would only be used to invade people’s privacy. One contributor even went so far as to say that the telephone introduced society to a slippery slope where we would soon be “nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other.” Other attacks on the telephone insisted that it would make society lazy and anti-social and some even claimed the new technology would be used to communicate with the dead.
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  (#5) The Television Became Even Scarier Than the Radio

  Everything people feared about the radio was amplified with the introduction of the television in 1927. There was a fear that radio would turn people away from reading or having intimate conversations with one another; the television received that very same critique. Media historian Ellen Wartella told Slate that critics of the television insisted it would “hurt radio, conversation, reading, and the patterns of family living and result in the further vulgarization of American culture.”

  Poor television was receiving backlash from both sides. Those who feared what technology might do to human interaction were opposed to the television and those who were optimistic about new technology, but had already invested in the world of radio, were afraid the new medium would tarnish their investments.
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  (#3) Spectator Magazine Bashed the Telegraph in the Late 1800s

  When the telegraph was first introduced, critics insisted the new technology would ruin the poetry of the English language. The widespread belief was that by encouraging people to communicate in short, incomplete sentences, the telegraph would eventually train people to always speak in sporadic, choppy thoughts. Criticism of the telegraph was so widespread that it eventually took center stage in a popular magazine of the time. Back in 1889, Spectator magazine released an editorial warning against the “constant diffusion of statements in snippets,” while also observing the “peculiar conversational abbreviations” between two men who were communicating via the telegraph. The same critics would surely be horrified by emojis and chatspeak.

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