Continue Reading Below Advertisement

through the media because inciting panic is profitable for news outlets, but more importantly, because adults want to believe they're true.

This is where things get ugly for you, future me.

You're part of that constituency that wants these completely ludicrous stories about teenagers to be real. There's probably a similar story in your time about teens getting high by rubbing fermented breast milk in their eyes or something, and you're ready to believe it. You want to believe it because there is a part of you that is hunting for a motive to be afraid of teens, even your teens, and that part of you is not interested in reason or logic. I just want you to understand why that is so that you can overcome it. Naturally, facts and explanations won't do much to sway you, but I'm hoping that by writing this down now, you will remember it all in the future and realize why your hostility toward teens is making you an idiot and a bad person.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

The Next Generation Is a Reminder of Your Irrelevance.

It's natural for you to be uneasy about youth. On the basest of levels, a young up-and-coming generation is a testament to your own growing insignificance. The animosity you feel toward teenagers is the same animosity old people feel toward technology; both represent an end to your relevance on Earth. It's only logical you would want to find faults in their new systems, proving you're still necessary in relation to the world. If that sounds off base, just look at the "dangerous craze" among teens in my day.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

The media panic around I-Dosing is a desperate strike at two things adults don't quite understand and privately despise: Teenagers and technology. The preposterous idea of downloading drugs and getting high listening to a dial tone reeks of ignorance and fear. Everyone is willing to believe it because they aren't entirely sure what teenagers or the Internet are capable of. The news coverage just satisfies the urge adults have to poke holes in teenage and electronic culture at the same time. It feels good to believe this is happening because it allows everyone to point to the evils of both kids and the Internet while saying, "You see, they still need us! Our way was right all along!"

But even beneath that desire to protect and to matter to kids is an emotion that's less sincere, that's more petty and selfish than fear.