Apprehensions about the impact of the social media on children’s brains readily intermesh with alarmist accounts of predatory hackers and pedophiles, internet trolls, identity theft, phishing scams, Trojan horses, viruses and worms. The Internet serves as metaphor through which wider social and cultural anxieties are communicated. That is why for so many of its critics its impact on offline culture appears in such a negative light.
Predictably the Internet is also an object of glorification by its technophile advocates. Time and again the public is informed that the Internet is transforming human life towards a more enlightened and creative existence. The public is constantly told that Big Data and the Internet of Things are about to revolutionize human existence. Claims that digital technology will fundamentally transform education, the way we work, play and interact with one another suggest that these new media will have an even greater impact on our culture than the invention of writing and reading.