[dminzi]

It’s hard to say whether the lack of purpose causes the addiction to social media or vice versa. I think it’s probably the reverse. It’s hard to find purpose in life when every time you’ve been bored since the age of 12 you’ve logged into a distraction machine.

What I find most troubling is that a lot of people in my age group know the detrimental effect social media has on them. They’ll knowingly waste a couple of hours everyday. And, anybody who tries to pull away from it is ridiculed for “trying to appear superior” or mocked for apparently subscribing to “back to nature” ideology. This makes it even harder to leave; it delayed my own escape by at least 1 year.

What makes it downright frightening to me is that we as a collective have several enormously difficult problems that we must solve. Information floods the brain and drowns out thoughts that should be had daily like “the past 5 years have been the hottest ever recorded.” Politics is another area that scares me. People my age are upset with the government. Yet, most could not write more than 5 tweets about why. They’ll claim the opposition has been lead astray by questionable news sources on social media sites while simultaneously participating in exactly that trap themselves.

Quick and cheap ideas became a source of easy gratification. Generations raised in such an environment are probably not prepared to face the challenge of a world sliding - admittedly slowly - towards disaster.