Potato Chipping

12 Steps to Fabricating a Moral Panic

May 27th, 2009 |

Teens and Texting (New York Times, 5/26/09)

Step 1: Select an act, norm, or condition to become stigmatized. The group or subculture primarily associated with this topic should ideally have little to no political power, and already be associated with other deviant behaviors (e.g., teenagers).

Step 2: Write a title stating the topic and its association with harm, but be sure to insert a qualifier (e.g., “may”) so everyone thinks you’re being objective. Then dispense with any objectivity in an opening paragraph that can be read over an ominous soundtrack on the evening news.

Texting May Be Taking a Toll

They do it late at night when their parents are asleep. They do it in restaurants and while crossing busy streets. They do it in the classroom with their hands behind their back. They do it so much their thumbs hurt.

Step 3: Cite statistics inappropriately, such as invoking the mean of a non-normal, non-symmetrical distribution doubtlessly skewed by extreme outliers. Use large numbers to stun consumers with little understanding of scale. If the rate of change is mostly fueled by recent developments (e.g., the ubiquity of the cell phone and proliferation of unlimited texting plans), cite this unsustainable rate of change, knowing that many consumers will erroneously apply linear extrapolation.

Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier.

Step 4: Identify the potentially harmful consequences. These consequences should ideally encompass several potential areas of harm (e.g., physical, mental, developmental, psychological, moral). Lumping these consequences together in a list near the beginning of your story is particularly effective.

The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.

Step 5: Assemble a cast of authority figures sympathetic to the possibility of harm, When possible, refer to them by their full and impressive titles, to further establish that they Know Stuff.

Dr. Martin Joffe, a pediatrician in Greenbrae, Calif. …

Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who is director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who has studied texting among teenagers in the Boston area for three years …

Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif. …

Peter W. Johnson, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington …

Step 6: When citing empirical evidence offered by experts, rely upon the most unrepresentative methods possible, such as small purposive samples. Rather than offering relevant information, such as the outcomes of tests of statistical significance, use vague descriptors of quantity, such as “many” or “most.”

… Dr. Martin Joffe, a pediatrician in Greenbrae, Calif., recently surveyed students at two local high schools and said he found that many were routinely sending hundreds of texts every day. …

… Ms. Yager recently gave an anonymous survey to 50 of her students; most said they texted during class. …

… Dr. Joffe says parents tend to be far less aware of texting than of, say, video game playing or general computer use, and the unlimited plans often mean that parents stop paying attention to billing details. “I talk to parents in the office now,” he said. “I’m quizzing them, and no one is thinking about this.” …

Step 7: Rather than relying upon empirical evidence, however, most expert testimony should reflect unverifiable or unverified opinion. Examples include broad, overgeneralizing theories, stereotypes masquerading as broad, overgeneralizing theories, or normative assumptions masquerading as broad, overgeneralizing theories. As these statements are the “substance” of your story, cite as many as possible. To preserve a veneer of objectivity, at least one expert must have crammed his or her opinion with qualifiers and weasel words.

… “Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be,” she said. “Texting hits directly at both those jobs.” …

… Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said teenagers had a “terrific interest in knowing what’s going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop.” For that reason, he said, the rapid rise in texting has potential for great benefit and great harm. …

… Professor Turkle can sympathize. “Teens feel they are being punished for behavior in which their parents indulge,” she said. And in what she calls a poignant twist, teenagers still need their parents’ undivided attention. “Even though they text 3,500 messages a week, when they walk out of their ballet lesson, they’re upset to see their dad in the car on the BlackBerry,” she said. “The fantasy of every adolescent is that the parent is there, waiting, expectant, completely there for them.” …

… Peter W. Johnson, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, said it was too early to tell whether this kind of stress is damaging. But he added, “Based on our experiences with computer users, we know intensive repetitive use of the upper extremities can lead to musculoskeletal disorders, so we have some reason to be concerned that too much texting could lead to temporary or permanent damage to the thumbs.” …

Step 8: Do not interview or otherwise acknowledge any of the millions or tens of millions of participants who do not suffer negative consequences. Instead, locate multiple outliers, and pretend that these participants are representative.

… Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth-grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on her tiny LG phone as fast as she typed on a regular keyboard. A few months ago, she noticed a painful cramping in her thumbs. …

… Greg Hardesty, a reporter in Lake Forest, Calif., said that late last year his 13-year-old daughter, Reina, racked up 14,528 texts in one month. She would keep the phone on after going to bed, switching it to vibrate and waiting for it to light up and signal an incoming message. …

Step 9: Interview a social control agent who can testify to the unchecked proliferation of your topic, and his/her institution’s current inability to halt it. [Note: The social control agent may be replaced in certain instances by a victim/concerned parent-turned-moral-entrepreneur.]

Teachers are often oblivious. “It’s a huge issue, and it’s rampant,” said Deborah Yager, a high school chemistry teacher in Castro Valley, Calif.

“I can’t tell when it’s happening, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” she said. “And I’m not going to take the time every day to try to police it.”

Step 10: Include an example of how your consumers can take matters into their own hands. The most effective way is to select an outlier clearly requiring intervention and showing that the intervention has been responsible for the amelioration of negative consequences. If done properly, many consumers will overreact to this uplifting story and impose draconian measures upon those not actually threatened by the menace.

Mr. Hardesty wrote a column about Reina’s texting in his newspaper, The Orange County Register, and in the flurry of attention that followed, her volume soared to about 24,000 messages. Finally, when her grades fell precipitously, her parents confiscated the phone.

Reina’s grades have since improved, and the phone is back in her hands, but her text messages are limited to 5,000 per month — and none between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. on weekdays.

Step 11: Edit the story and sprinkle with qualifiers—enough that you appear to be objective, but not so many that your consumers perceive that the menace is largely fabricated. Every qualification should be immediately followed by a return to fearmongering.

The rise in texting is too recent to have produced any conclusive data on health effects. But Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who is director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who has studied texting among teenagers in the Boston area for three years, said it might be causing a shift in the way adolescents develop.

Step 12: Submit to your editor, and wait for the inevitable flood of copycat stories from other media sources to legitimate your topic. Congratulations, you’ve just created a social problem where none existed before! Rinse and repeat whenever you feel like imposing your normative biases upon hegemonic society.