Bad for You: Exposing the Campaign against Fun: A Graphic Investigation by Kevin C. Pyle (review)

Although the term ephebiphobia, fear of youth, doesn’t appear until well into this title, it is the controlling idea behind Pyle’s exploration of buzzkill, past and present. The presentation is organized into five chapters—Comics, Games, Technology, Play, and Thought—but these headers offer only rough clues to the exact issues, many of which overlap throughout the book. The comics chapter, for instance, also includes discussion of horror in folklore and how fantasy play (and reading) can help kids master fear; “Games” focuses primarily on video gaming but also introduces the concept of moral panic, which Pyle cites in further topics. The technological exploration reviews current pseudoscientific ideas on how technology might be impacting the brain and processing activity; the look at play treats evolving demands for child safety in public play spaces; and the final chapter covers topics related to the education system. Pyle acts as provocateur, encouraging readers to think critically about adult critiques of kid culture, and to be particularly aware of the trap of conflating correlation with causation. It’s great advice, and it’s best when packaged in Pyle’s own comics-formatted arguments. Too often, though, clever and pithy discussion is interrupted by less effective prose rants, and Pyle even slips occasionally into the correlation mire as he sidesteps finesse. Still, he opens up a Pandora’s box of devilries sure to raise kids’ blood pressure, and the thorough online references on the Bad for You website offer a supplement to his print end matter and make it easy for middle-schoolers to click up myriad arguments to support or refute their own contentions. This may not be quite what the more high-minded Common Core folk had in mind, but you can bet that teachers will recognize a springboard to persuasive essay-writing lurking within these covers.