Every Time Communication Evolved, People Lost Their Minds: A Rant on New Ways to Talk

By Christopher Moore

So here we are in 2025, phones glued to our faces, the whole world screaming at each other in the comments section. But you know what? This ain’t new. Every time mass communication has taken a big leap, people have lost their damn minds.

We’ve been on this hamster wheel since the beginning. Let’s walk it back.

Newspapers: The Original Internet (1700s – 1800s)

When newspapers started rolling out for the masses, it blew the doors off how people got their information. Suddenly, the average guy in the street was reading about politics, wars, and scandals. And guess who controlled it? The elite. Politicians, big-time publishers, and anyone who could afford a printing press.

Newspapers fired up revolutions, built political parties, and practically ran the country. But people panicked:

“What if the commoners get the wrong ideas?”

Boom. Society lost its mind.

Telegraph: Instant Panic Delivery (Mid 1800s)

The telegraph made the world smaller overnight. Messages crossed continents in minutes. Now, who ran this thing? Western Union, governments, and the media elite. And what did they do with it? They cranked up the speed of propaganda.

People freaked:

“Humans can’t handle this much information this fast!”

There were actual debates on whether we were moving too fast for our own good. Spoiler alert: we didn’t slow down.

Telephone: The Death of Penmanship (Late 1800s – Early 1900s)

The telephone put your voice in someone else’s house. Bell Telephone (later AT&T) controlled it, and they basically owned your lines. People cried about the death of letter writing and the collapse of privacy.

“They can listen to me now? From anywhere?”

Yup. And people lost their minds.

Radio and Television: Corporate Puppeteering (1920s – 1950s)

Radio came first, then TV barged in like it owned the place. Now the corporations really took the wheel. NBC, CBS, ABC—they didn’t just deliver news. They delivered the news. The only news. And the government used it too. Fireside chats. WWII propaganda. Red Scare panic.

Parents lost their minds:

“TV will rot our kids’ brains!”

Sound familiar? It should.

Computers and the Internet: The Wild West (1980s – 2000s)

The internet blew the gates off. No more gatekeepers. For the first time, you could publish something, build a website, or send your rants worldwide.

Control? Nobody really had it at first. It was the Wild West until Google, Facebook, and Amazon showed up and quietly cornered the whole damn thing.

Society freaked:

“The kids are addicted! They don’t know how to socialize! Hackers are gonna steal our lives!”

People started seeing internet addiction, cyberbullying, and privacy collapse. And the panic train kept rolling.

Smartphones and Social Media: Everybody Has a Megaphone (2007 – Present)

Then the iPhone dropped. And suddenly, everybody was a journalist, a critic, a celebrity, or a troll. Governments, corporations, influencers—they all started scrambling to control the feed.

Social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok? Yeah, they run the modern narrative. And surprise: they’re selling your attention to the highest bidder.

“We’re losing the ability to think! Social media is dividing us!”

People—you guessed it—lost their minds

The Pattern: It’s Not the Tech. It’s Us.

Every time a communication medium evolves, we freak out. We panic about losing control, losing privacy, and losing each other. We blame the tech, but it’s really just a mirror showing us who we already are: messy, loud, and desperate to connect.

The power always starts with a few (governments, corporations, rich folks) and slowly trickles down to everyone else. And every time, society hits the same beats:

1. Panic.
2. Moral outrage.
3. People predict the end of the world.
4. Eventually, we adapt.

But we never stop freaking out.

So when the next big thing drops—maybe AI, maybe brain implants—just remember: we’ve been here before.

And yes, people will definitely lose their minds again.

This article is an intro. I’m gonna get deep into this one.

Part two is coming soon.

-The Gun Loving Hippie Dad … Who Fixes Stuff

Rants, repairs, and realness