I’m reminded of the moral panic my parents generation had around televisions.
And their parents generation had over serialized plays on the radio.
And several generations removed, the panic over the printing press.
And their parents generation had over serialized plays on the radio.
And several generations removed, the panic over the printing press.
It won several oscars, and is still referenced today.
Far worse, there are many, many, many public spaces --- waiting rooms, bars, restaurants, cafes --- in which televisions are ominipresent and, again, always on.
This has become far worse, rather than better, with thinner and cheaper displays.
We didn’t get our first color + solid-state set (a huge marketing term back then) until 1978. That was probably about 5 years later than typical. It was a Zenith Space Command, also our first with a remote control. It used no batteries, pressing a button struck a metal tuning fork set for an “ultrasonic” frequency that a microphone in the set listened for. I quoted “ultrasonic”, because as a child I could definitely hear it.
The printing press (~1440), and subsequently cheap pulp-based paper (despite its rapid decay due to high-acid content), and increasingly-capable powered presses, and greatly-expanded literacy (19th century) did revolutionise the world, splitting the Christian faith, launching first the 100 Years War then the Long 19th Century (1789--1914 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_nineteenth_century), including the Revolutions of 1848 in which over 50 nations saw some form of political ferment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848).
Radio played a huge role in the rise of fascism in Italy (Mussolini), Germany (Hitler), and the US (Father Coughlan, McCarthyism). Television revolutionised US politics, particularly at the presidential level (Kennedy-Nixon debates), as did cable television, talk radio, and the nascent Internet.
In The Matrix (1990), John S. Quartermann's introduction details the influence of then-nascent computer and fax networks on the Tienanmen Square protests in China. Even early in the 1990s, the role of Usenet and BBSes in conflicts in Yugoslavia and Turkey was noted (see especially Serdar Argic: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic>).
McLuhan (who influenced Eisenstein), Harold Innis (who influenced McLuhan), Neil Postman (another McLuhan protege) Edward S. Herman, Jerry Mander, Noam Chomsky, Robert W. McChesney, Andrew Shapiro, and many others have made similar observations (bibliography here: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a...).
If you change how information flows through a system, you change that system. This applies directly to media and its influence on culture, politics, business, and more.
The reason that the fears seem so quaint is because we live in the landscape that emerged. We are the consequence. The Time Before seems so difficult to conceive of and understand because it was all but entirely supersceded.
We face a similar situation in all likelihood with further algorithmic-driven media and GD ML AI ourselves.