Tom Standage has penned an in-depth look at former "dangerous" fads that caused rippled in polite society pre-videogames for Wired Magazine.

US senator Charles Schumer says some videogames aimed at kids "desensitize them to death and destruction." But dire pronouncements about new forms of entertainment are old hat. It goes like this: Young people embrace an activity. Adults condemn it. The kids grow up, no better or worse than their elders, and the moral panic subsides. Then the whole cycle starts over. Here's how the establishment has greeted past scourges.

The author of The Victorian Internet (just got my copy today, coincidentally), covers a wide range of subjects, including novels, the telephone, comic books and the waltz.