Fear the Phone

Wondermark – a delightfully quirky and witty web comic that employes 18th century iconography – recently unearthed an amusing article from an 1889 periodical called Nature that shows the more things change, the more they scare the bejeezus out of us.

"One day, the phone will invade every household and kids will find a way to do sex with it!" - Alexander Graham Bell

From the 19th Century article:

The telephone is the most dangerous of all because it enters into every dwelling. Its interminable network of wires is a perpetual menace to life and property. In its best performance it is only a convenience. It was never a necessity.

Read the full article, along with Wondermark author David Malki’s fantastic write-up.

Sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it? Replace “telephone” with “computer” or “4square” and you have the same rant being written on a daily basis almost 122 years later.

Whether it’s tech, sex, drugs, or jeggings, we’ll never not be afraid of what we don’t know about what our kids are doing. We can take solace, though, that none of these fears are new or particularly interesting. As such, we should learn to embrace or at the very least accept change rather than run screaming from it.

Wait…except jeggings.

Guys, we need to save the kids from jeggings right now!