Seems like every decade people have to freak out. But it isn't just the common generational trope. The religious right has to always have another issue that can be used as the poster boy for the war on Lucifer. If you don't have a boogie man, then how do you keep the troops lathered up and ready to fight.
Comic books. Elvis and the rock-n-roll music. Heck, even self-pleasure makes you grow hair on your palms, lose your eyesight, and causes mental illness.
Don't forget home taping destroyed the music industry and nothing new has been recorded since the early 1980s.
And porn on BBSs predated modern Internet porn by a few decades and, as I recall, it was even a Time cover story once--when the weekly news mags were still relevant.
Let's also not forget the scares about the dangers of smoking, leaded gasoline, asbestos, licking radium paint, and drunk driving.
Not all new inventions are a net benefit to society just because they are new, not all things are always good in all contexts, and 2024 is not the end of history, or of cultural evolution.
But all of your examples are 'real'. Real physical things that can impact someone materially. Chemicals, products.
Lot of the 'scare' things are just 'ideas'. Should we outlaw ideas is the problem. That is basically how anti-communism works, 'communism' is an idea that the right calls a 'mind virus' that we should ban because it can infect people.
Of course, super hard to tell what is freedom of speech these days. I've been hearing the right scream about freedom of speech for years now, and all of sudden with Gaza they want to round people up if anybody criticizes Israel.
Having a television or radio blasting propaganda into your living room is real. It's an actual physical thing, it's not a concept. So is the Facebook app, and the social dynamics that prevail on it. So are screens in general.
I'm sure that the optimal amount of all those things is non-zero, but it's possible that it's also not 'all day, every day.'
It's not unreasonable for schools to restrict this, just like it's not unreasonable for a school to restrict you from bringing a mariachi band with you to class.
Rock-Satan scare of the 80's.
Rap-Drug Scare
Walkman will let kids get snatched up.
The pager
Trans people are coming for your husband.
Seems like every decade people have to freak out. But it isn't just the common generational trope. The religious right has to always have another issue that can be used as the poster boy for the war on Lucifer. If you don't have a boogie man, then how do you keep the troops lathered up and ready to fight.