In another episode of "Doesn't anyone please think of the children?!", a part of society has declared war on mobile devices and their applications, believing that all the mental health problems afflicting young people today will disappear when they don't have a smartphone. But that story isn't new, and to find its most extreme version, you just have to cross the pond and go back 30 years. Do you remember beepers? Incredible as it seems, there was a time when any teenager could end up in jail for carrying one to school...
If we go by the latest trends, we can only conclude that chronic poverty, unemployment, rising cost of living, lack of healthcare, and the education crisis have nothing to do with the mental state of the youngest, and everything comes down to smartphones and social media. Don't get me wrong, both things are very bad in excess, but this message forces me to go back 30 years, when the whole world repeated that I would end up an idiot for spending so much time in front of the computer... and here I am, preparing articles and paying bills, while those 'Templars' now need help with the Smart TV remote. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Another thing that happened 30 years ago was the hunt for beeper users (or 'mensáfonos', a term I will never use again), and I'm not exaggerating. Louis Anslow of the Pessimists Archive reminds us that the beeper was considered a symbol of drug trafficking, prostitution, and corruption of minors... to the point that some children ended up in jail for using them.
The persecution of beepers
Logically, the panic began with the amplification of the media. An article published by the Washington Post in July 1988 with the title Message is out for beepers (paywall) was followed by stories like "Beepers flourish in drug business" and "Drug beepers: Paging devices popular with cocaine dealers". However, the link with the youngest soon materialized. Teachers of that era saw the beeper as a constant distraction among their students, and used the "drug factor" to seek its prohibition. A certain James Fleming of the Dade Public Schools organization told The New York Times: "How can we expect students to 'just say no to drugs' when we allow them to wear the most dominant symbol of drug trafficking on their belts?"
Schools, towns, states, and even the US Senate approved new rules limiting and/or prohibiting the use of beepers, convinced that they were fighting drug trafficking and prostitution. Prison, community service, and loss of driver's license were some of the punishments. Newspaper clippings with news of teenagers arrested and suspended for 'beeper possession' are more than abundant. A notable case was that of Richard Morris Jr., 13 years old, who was removed from his school in handcuffs for carrying a beeper that didn't even work. The peak of all this paranoia came in October 1996, when Ryan Hudson, 5 years old, was suspended in New Jersey for carrying a beeper.
As expected, the companies fought tooth and nail, pretending to be allies of an oppressed youth by people who didn't understand new technology (any resemblance to buying influencers on TikTok and Instagram is no coincidence). Motorola, with 80 percent of the US market under its control, even enlisted the children of its own employees, and launched extensive advertising campaigns offering beepers at a reduced cost. One of the partners was PepsiCo, with its Mountain Dew brand.
Last detail: New Jersey banned beepers for minors under 18, with a six-month prison sentence. 30 years later, the law is still there. In November 2023, the Washington Post published an article suggesting a total ban on smartphones in schools.
"Doesn't anyone please think of the children?"
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