David McManus looks at how one moral panic has been replaced...

He spends all his time glued to that television!”

“Don’t sit so close to the screen, you’ll grow up with square eyes.”

“It’s impossible to tear her away from the goggle box!”

What is happening to these cries of anguish that once bellowed out from family homes up and down the land? Where now are those doom-laden headlines that for so long predicted the moral breakdown of a future society run by grown up children unable to focus on life away from the TV?

We just don’t hear or see them any more, do we? All studies show that kids are spending far fewer hours worshipping at the flickering glow of the big screen so surely we have something to finally be happy about. The very future of humanity has been saved from the ravaging jaws of immorality and social decay that is CBBC. Our children just might turn out OK after all. Phew.

But wait! A new vice now grips the younger generation and this time things are going to be even worse.

Figures show that for the first time our younger generation are spending more time online than they do watching television. These days schoolchildren are far less likely to race home when the bell goes to watch Grange Hill (if you’re under 20, Google it), favouring a leisurely saunter back as they engage with their smartphones, catching up with friends and flicking through the days crazy Instagrams.

The terrifying demon within our midst is no longer an image of the child sitting cross-legged, chin resting on knitted fingers, lost in the alternative existence being played out in front of them.

It has been replaced by the child sat on the sofa, cushion on lap, mobile phone clenched between both hands, lost in the alternative existence being played out in front of them. Only this time it is worse because we have no idea what that alternative existence is.

When once the parental generation could peer over the newspaper at the TV show they were pretending to ignore and tut disapprovingly, now all we have are the sinister smirks and chuckles made at unseeable screens as the youth no doubt conspire to take over via some Midwich Cuckoos app.

We older bunch always have to have something to be concerned about in our offspring. But let’s imagine that in the blink of an eye smartphones are somehow uninvented. Would we suddenly enjoy 100 per cent engagement from our kids? Would family evenings be spent in deep discussion about world events and that apparently vital recap of what actually did happen at school today?

It’s doubtful.

At least phones and the Internet create an opportunity for communication and sharing in ways that have previously never been part of a child’s life. Society is not destined for inevitable collapse because of Minecraft, the latest Kardashians gossip, or videos of people trying to digest large spoonfuls of cinnamon powder in the latest global challenge.

Besides, the next time you are on a bus or in a waiting room, take a moment to look at what the grown-ups around you are doing.