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This article explores how societies from Ancient Greece onward have reacted to new inventions with fear and moral panic. It highlights recurring themes in which each technological advance—from printing presses to AI—is blamed for social decay.
- Plato worried writing would weaken memory, while Socrates feared poetry stirred emotion without understanding—moral panic over new media dates back to ancient Greece.
- The Gutenberg press enabled Luther's 95 Theses to spread rapidly, sparking both the Reformation and Catholic Church crackdowns on fears of heresy.
- Fredric Wertham's claims linking comic books to juvenile delinquency led to Senator Estes Kefauver's 1954 congressional hearings.
- The same panic-then-adapt cycle repeated with telegraphs, rock music, TV, 1990s violent video games (Mortal Kombat, Doom), and now social media and AI.