Sometimes it feels as though there's an element of moral panic to the introduction of any new technology. Video Games, Social media, any time there's an innovation, a small but vocal minority stands up to say "won't somebody please think of the children?"

In an interview in The Wall Street Journal's Tech Europe blog yesterday, Genevieve Bell, the director of Intel Corporation’s Interaction and Experience Research, illustrates how moral panic over technology is almost as old as technology itself, and "it is always played out in the bodies of children and women." In studying moral panics of the past, she has developed a three point formula for what technology will cause this kind of fierce backlash.

• It has to change your relationship to time.
• It has to change your relationship to space.
• It has to change your relationship to other people.

That's why the invention of the steam engine caused more sturm und drang than, say, the invention of velcro.

The article has a couple of colorful examples of moral panic from the distant past and is definitely worth checking you. You can read it by following this link.

(Via The Wall Street Journal)