Abstract

Ethical objections to the use of mass media and the internet help explain why the Plain People of North America avoid new communication technologies. Each subgroup of plain folk-including Amish, Mennonites, and Brethren adopt differing amounts of new technology, and the use variesfrom region to region or even,from community to community. Old media such as the radio and telephone and newer media such as television and the internet introduce diferent and unwelcome moral values into plain communities, although the telephone is often a borderline case. The ethical systems of the Old Order groups provide a unique and pragmatic critique of the widespread acceptance of mass media and the internet in the larger social world.