4 ms·

"Stranger danger" as a concept is far older than 20 years, so you're just looking at the same type of statistic as OP. I'm guessing you need to go back well ove

"Stranger danger" as a concept is far older than 20 years, so you're just looking at the same type of statistic as OP. I'm guessing you need to go back well over 50 years for a meaningful difference in attitudes. Edit: when I was growing up (well before 2001!) that was certainly the attitude – we didn't have the phrase "stranger danger" (maybe that's from the US?) but "don't take sweets from strangers" was common. I also remember, as an adult, watching the film M and that finished with a strong message about not leaving your children unsupervised, and that's from 1931! But that message doesn't prove it was common at the time so I just mention that for curiosity.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
There has been some level of distrust towards strangers in society forever. The comment I was replying to is about the rather recent complete segregation of children from possibly interacting with strangers.
danaris 6y ago
I believe the major US panic about "stranger danger" arose in the 1980s and early 1990s—in particular, there were a couple of high-profile cases of children going missing in the early '90s that were sensationalized far beyond what made any sense. As a child growing up in the '80s, I was allowed to poke around the neighborhood unsupervised, but by the time I was a teenager, I was already hearing about children being strictly watched at all times as "the norm".
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  There were a few cases of multiple children missing in major cities (like the Atlanta child murders, 28 dead in two years), and also the proliferation of cable news. The former was a valid, regional, concern but people let it blow up into a more national fear. Cable news, in turn, started emphasizing singular disappearances/killings (not serial cases), which further exacerbated this fear. When you have 24 hours of coverage on CNN and 10 of them are about "Missing Girl in California", your perception of how common this is gets distorted. It's a singular case, but seeing it all the time causes people to perceive it as a frequent thing instead of the relatively rare thing it is in most of the country.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

There has been some level of distrust towards strangers in society forever. The comment I was replying to is about the rather recent complete segregation of children from possibly interacting with strangers.

danaris 6y ago

I believe the major US panic about "stranger danger" arose in the 1980s and early 1990s—in particular, there were a couple of high-profile cases of children going missing in the early '90s that were sensationalized far beyond what made any sense. As a child growing up in the '80s, I was allowed to poke around the neighborhood unsupervised, but by the time I was a teenager, I was already hearing about children being strictly watched at all times as "the norm".

Jtsummers 6y ago
There were a few cases of multiple children missing in major cities (like the Atlanta child murders, 28 dead in two years), and also the proliferation of cable news. The former was a valid, regional, concern but people let it blow up into a more national fear. Cable news, in turn, started emphasizing singular disappearances/killings (not serial cases), which further exacerbated this fear. When you have 24 hours of coverage on CNN and 10 of them are about "Missing Girl in California", your perception of how common this is gets distorted. It's a singular case, but seeing it all the time causes people to perceive it as a frequent thing instead of the relatively rare thing it is in most of the country.