In fact dime novels weren’t just widely available but were decried as the source of truancy and corruption of youth! Sound familiar?

A funny thing to vote down as it’s so well known. Dime novels, TV, video games, social media…anything new is a candidate to be attacked as corrupting “kids these days”. Even Socrates (recounted in Phaedrus) Sid that writing would be the downfall of students.

Here’s a very brief example on the dime novel case: https://techlashed.org/panic/cheap-popular-fiction-penny-dre...