What other forms of media did older people look down on?

[Civ001]

A lot of older people tend to look down on video games because they believe that video games is a sign of laziness, violence, and an addiction. Yet did older generations have a hatred of earlier forms of media? I know that television was highly criticized in the 50s, and Rock and Roll, Dungeons and Dragons, and comic books.

 

[Phrossack]

"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."

-Charles Hallock, 1889

Spoiler :

“For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.

Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing. And every word, when once it is written, is bandied about, alike among those who understand and those who have no interest in it, and it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always needs its father to help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself."

-Plato, via a fictional conversation in the Phaedrus, a Socratic dialogue

 

[cybrxkhan]

Books.

In some societies where oral tradition was the normal way to transmit information or provide entertainment, writing was seen as an inferior form of media. That sort of idea is still prevalent among some groups, such as very traditional Hindu Brahmins.

I suppose a lot of Lit teachers would be surprised.

Edit: whoops, looks like Phrossack got that before me.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Today I thought of a question I wanted to ask in the Questions not worth their own thread thread, but this topic is appropriate.

Were news organizations such as Faux News or CNN always looked down upon for their obvious bias and poor journalism or is this a more recent phenomenon? In other words, even discounting the probable bias you would encounter when turning on the news in the past (say 1950's-1990's), would you still expect that the news being broadcasted was a digest and summary of the best information available? Or was Faux News/CNN always garbage?

I really only have the past decade as a reference point so it's been bugging me for most of the day.

 

[GoodGame]

At times people have hated comic books or 8-tracks.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Today I thought of a question I wanted to ask in the Questions not worth their own thread thread, but this topic is appropriate.

Were news organizations such as Faux News or CNN always looked down upon for their obvious bias and poor journalism or is this a more recent phenomenon? In other words, even discounting the probable bias you would encounter when turning on the news in the past (say 1950's-1990's), would you still expect that the news being broadcasted was a digest and summary of the best information available? Or was Faux News/CNN always garbage?

I really only have the past decade as a reference point so it's been bugging me for most of the day.

I don't know about people in general, but me and my family used to hold CNN in somewhat high regard, at least for American news networks. We used to consider it more or less on par with BBC, Al Jazira, etc.


Of course, that is no longer the case.

 

[Lord Baal]

delete

 

[MilesGregarius]

Indeed.

 

[Traitorfish]

Older folks think that the version of this thread from October isn't anywhere near as good as the version of this thread from June.

 

[Lord Baal]

delete