YOU know the drill. Something new comes along and doomsters announce that civilisation is under threat.

Can you tell what elicited the following effects on young people?

Mania, inappropriate desires, lust even, unrealistic expectations, hysteria, nervous disorders, mental instability, self-indulgence, introspection leading to the breakdown of society.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, medics, clergymen and politicians laid those charges against the novel – the Nintendo Switch of its day.

Jane Austen was seen as the great destroyer of sense and sensibility, the enemy of civilisation, the evil corrupter of youth.

There was an element of misogyny about it – the patriarchy didn’t like young women disappearing into private worlds; but we have seen moral panics replicated time and time again.

And it’s not just the arts that have borne the brunt of alarm – degenerate jazz, rock and roll, and Elvis’s subversive hips. From the Salem Witch trials to hysteria over migration today, humans have made monsters of innocent people.

Whole groups have been wiped out as a result. Rwanda was not that long ago; Gaza is being obliterated today.

One of humanity’s flaws is its susceptibility to catastrophise, often with tragic consequences.

I’m old enough to remember wasting........

© The Irish News