We are more connected than ever before, both in and outside, because of the internet. This widespread connection has been greatly beneficial to us, though it has also made us significantly more isolated than ever.
We are, as our parents say, addicted to our phones.
All we would ever want to see is in our pocket, built to be exactly what we want to see. What we like dictates what we will see; it leaves us in an echo chamber full of almost solely our own opinions and beliefs echoing back at us. Doom-scrolling absorbs us into a reality that isn’t our own; we are vicariously living through other people’s experiences and beliefs. With this doubtless trust in what we see online, we inevitably fall for misinformation from what we deem to be trusted sources.
Along with that, a sense of anonymity brings out the worst in people. Teenagers have done things they would have never done before, only because they won’t have to face the consequences. Many blame the drastically higher rate of teenage depression and anxiety on our phones because we are so absorbed in everyone else’s lives that we both forget about ourselves and are so deeply personally involved in the internet. But if it weren’t appealing, we wouldn’t be using social media. Truly, all a person ever wants is connection, but we’ve never actually been so separate from each other.
Even when teens want to go out, the places made for us have been constantly closing. Free public areas kick us out or close, leaving our phones as our only resolution. This leaves me with a question I’ve had for my peers:
When we are older, will you feel like you spent your golden years in a way that satisfied you?
Teenagers are more of a recent “phenomenon”, at least in being a recognized age group. In the past, one went straight from child to adult by the time one hit 13. By the 1940s, the term had been created. America’s victory in WW2 had II defined youth culture. Adolescents aged 14 to 18 years were now seen as a market to advertise to.
As the mid-50s rolled in, the crime rate among teenagers rose in the U.S., and the term became a buzzword. Teenagers have been placed in an unfavorable light for years, reasonably so; we ruin and wreck many things. Nonetheless, teenagers flock to movies, parties, arcades, fast-food restaurants, and so on. These places that aren’t home, work, or school are dubbed “third spaces,” and due to other societal issues, they’ve been closing chronically. The reason? We’ve spent more time on our phones than out and about interacting with these spaces. It doesn’t help that we were born into technology constantly surrounding us; it’s extremely normal. The landscape of how we interact with the internet now was almost guaranteed from the beginning; it’s all-consuming.
Of course, not everything is doom and gloom. We are still interacting. Socials allow us to both talk to people far away and meet up to attend events and extracurricular activities. More of the issue is the lack of spending free time. I’ve been told a plethora of stories from adults who would knock on someone’s door, on a school day, with no plan on where to go, and not tell them earlier. After school, most of us doom scroll. It’s addictive! Constantly needing to be updated on what’s going on, we can’t just wait.
Of course, not every moment of our lives is memorable, but we are letting a huge amount of our free time be absorbed by our phones. We don’t use our free time to sit and fart around anymore. Instead of speaking or interacting with others, our time and energy are put into our screens. We’re just constantly watching without memorizing. Out of all the videos we see, we will probably remember very few.
Our formative years have been filled with so much scrolling media that when we look back, it may blend into one big memory of a kid sitting and scrolling away until they are formed as an adult. And back pain.
Even so, only we have the ability to fix this; the only way to get change is to act on it.
I know people feel bad doom doom-scrolling. I asked four of my friends how they felt about how they spend their free time, and they all stated the most regretful part they had was when they spend hours on their phone in a way that doesn’t benefit them, and I agree.
Getting to see the occasional good of the internet is just that: occasional. Still, I do not believe there is a reason to, in its entirety, give up social media or the modern internet, rather just limit ourselves significantly. It’s a great privilege we have to connect with the media. It opened us up to more possibilities, but almost too many. It’s endless. Social media should really only be used for less than an hour; you can still keep up to date, but you aren’t wasting a significant amount of time on something that is, frankly, fruitless. It’s a tool, not a necessity.
I do wonder if every teenager in town were to go out at once, how would people react? If teens were to cause a ruckus, to force change, would it leave more of a mark on our golden years compared to how we’ve lived as of now? Will the time we’ve spent connecting finally pay off as something that has truly fulfilled us?
Sources:
https://www.brownhealth.org/be-well/social-media-good-bad-and-ugly
https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/july-2023/the-surprising-benefits-of-tiktok-for-teenagers
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/02/brief-history-teenagers/
https://thewhitehatter.ca/why-teens-are-so-attracted-to-social-media/