Ephebiphobia

Ephebiphobia is the fear of youth. First coined as the "fear or loathing of teenagers", today the phenomenon is recognized as the "inaccurate, exaggerated and sensational characterization of young people" in a range of settings around the world. Studies of the fear of youth occur in sociology and youth studies. It is distinguished from pedophobia by being more focused on adolescents than prepubescent children. The word ephebiphobia is formed from the Greek ἔφηβος éphēbos, meaning "youth" or "adolescent" and φόβος phóbos, meaning "fear" or "phobia". The coinage of this term is attributed to a 1994 article by Kirk Astroth published in Phi Delta Kappan. Today, common usage occurs internationally by sociologists, government agencies, and youth advocacy organizations that define ephebiphobia as an abnormal or irrational and persistent fear or loathing of teenagers or adolescence. The term paedophobia has gained popular acceptance in Europe to describe the aforementioned "fear of youth". Pediaphobia is the fear of infants and children. Hebephobia (from the Greek ἥβη, hḗbē, "youth, puberty") has also been proposed. Similar terms include adultism, which is a predisposition towards adults that is biased against children and youth, and ageism, which describes discrimination against any person because of their age. In the context of the 21st century, the neologism juvenoia has been used by publications such as The Christian Science Monitor to describe distaste and/or fear of the social culture associated with young people. The psychological distancing is prominently tied to advancements in technology and the exposure it facilitates to material that violates traditional values. The fear of youth, along with fear of street culture and the fear of crime, is said to have been in Western culture for "time immemorial". Machiavelli is said to have realized that a fear of youth is what kept the city of Florence from keeping a standing army. Ancient Venice and ancient Greece are also said to have had floundering public policy because of their fear of youth.