While we can curse the darkness of the virtual cage our children are trapped in, things will likely not change until Big Tech are forced to change.
On Jan. 31, a groundbreaking hearing was held on Capitol Hill as the CEOs of five major social media platforms were called to testify (three only after having to be forced by subpoena) about the alleged harm—sometimes fatal—they have inflicted on America’s youth.
For more than four hours, with family members in the audience who had lost children to suicide, these tech gurus tried to deflect any talk about or accept responsibility for the alleged negative influence of their platforms.
In his recent book, “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt writes: “At the turn of the millennium, technology companies created a set of world-changing products that transformed life not just for adults but for children, too. … Yet, the companies that developed them had done little or no research on the mental health effects. When faced with growing evidence that their products were harming young people, they mostly engaged in denial, obfuscation, and public relations campaigns.”
The result has placed our children in a virtual cage that has isolated them physically, socially, and emotionally—with little hope of escape.
Trapped in this virtual cage, girls suffer massive depression as they face pressure to conform to certain body images, become targeted by predators, and are mocked by their peers if they choose not to participate in an online game of one-upmanship based on looks.
Mr. Haidt states: “The more time a girl spends on social media, the more likely she is to be depressed or anxious. Girls who say they spend five or more hours each weekday on social media are three times as likely to be depressed as those who report no social media time.”
Meanwhile, boys are sucked into a virtual world of video games and pornography, which traps them into a world of perpetual adolescence, with no idea of how to communicate with and treat the opposite sex in a gentlemanly manner, while also keeping them from maturing into responsible men.
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