Social media is addictive and is destroying the fabric of our society. But who cares when we can TikTok dance our troubles away?
Jonathan Haidt, one of the leading researchers in social psychology, has written extensively about the effects of social media on the minds of our youth. In particular, he discusses how depression has significantly increased among teenage girls and how pessimism has increased among teenage boys. Since 2013, the addictive nature of these social media applications has created a mental health epidemic among our teens. If you want to read more, check out his Substack here: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/boy-crisis?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
This is troubling because, as much as we may dislike kids, some wise people have stated that they are our future.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out, however. If you give any kid (or adult) a smartphone, watch their attention spans disintegrate into that of a goldfish. Modern adults have had some time to get accustomed to this; however, the brains of children are malleable. It’s the equivalent of giving kids their stereotypical party drug of choice and letting it rot away at their brains during their developing years.
Yet, at the same time, we have to consider that in modern-day society, you can’t escape social media. It is everywhere, and if you want any sort of social connection with another idiot similar to you, hustle business to create your own pyramid scheme, or just be perceived as a functional human being, then you need a social media presence. But do kids need to be subjected to that? I don’t think so.
It might take a cultural shift in the same way that we have identified the obesity crisis, but we have to start somewhere with raising awareness here. Disconnecting from the real world into our digital realm might get a lot worse before it gets better. But hey, in the meantime, at least you get to spend more time with me… which is probably not great for you either, but beats complete boredom, I suppose.