Historical Perspectives on Teens and Social Media: When Old Media was New

Digital media are having a powerful impact on the experience of childhood and adolescence. These media change and expand the types of people and information that children and teens can access without the knowledge of adults. While digital media have a lot to offer young people in the areas of information, entertainment, and social interaction, they also generate a variety of concerns about children's physical, emotional, and social well being. It is interesting to note, however, that digital media are only the latest in a long history of new media disrupting the existing media environment, capturing the interest of children, and generating anxiety in adults. This paper examines some of the new media of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the way adults reacted to children's embrace of the new media of their time.