9 Everyday Inventions That Caused Widespread Panic

5. Electricity Will Kill You Then Reanimate Your Corpse

Just take a moment to imagine your life without electricity. Regardless of what you pictured, you can more or less guarantee that it sucked.

There was a time, however, when electricity was seen as less of a basic human right, and more of an abomination. This was probably around the time we figured out that it can make dead bodies twitch and dance like an extra in the Thriller video. The obsession with electricity's apparently life-giving qualities peaked with the release of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

It's not just the gruesome reanimation of the dead that is feared though, as early developments in the technology often led to some pretty dodgy wiring and some pretty nasty shocks. People thought there was no way that a dangerous novelty such as the electric light could ever replace the trusty gaslight. Then again, they'd never tried to power a smartphone with fossil fuels.