As if it wasn’t clear already, our society has a technology addiction problem that is becoming more and more pervasive and damaging by the day.
The issues really stood out to me a few weeks ago when I was out to eat with my girlfriend. The restaurant wasn’t packed, but there were a good amount of people in there. I didn’t notice it at first because we were having a conversation, but then when I looked around the room every single person’s head was buried in their phone. For a moment, I thought something big had happened that everyone had received a notification for. But as I continued to look around, I realized I was wrong.
They were seriously all just too preoccupied with their phones to bother to look up and talk to the people around them. What was most troubling was witnessing a full family — two parents and three children aged roughly 10 to 15 years old — in a completely other world and not engaging with each other at all. What is the point in going places to be social if the only place you’re going to be social is on the five-inch pocket robot that appears to be glued to your hand?
In this very edition of The Columbian-Progress is our annual Christmas Greetings section, which features letters to Santa from every child through second grade in the county. Go and look at how many of those kids are asking for an iPhone. It’s staggering when you realize how substantial it is.
Think about when social media first started. It was an amazing way to connect with old friends and make new ones. It was so simple, yet it created real-life problems right from the word go. I remember being in junior high when Myspace came out, and there were so many fights among friends about their top friends list.
Nowadays, social media users are just one click away from explicit content at every turn. They are also much more susceptible to bullying online, as well as developing self-image issues. The thing is it never stops. Children aged 8 to 12 on average spend five hours and 33 minutes staring at screens, while those aged 13 to 18 spend eight hours and 39 minutes on average, according to a survey published by nonprofit research organization Common Sense Media.
A 2021 poll, conducted by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Michigan, discovered that 50% of children between the ages of 10 and 12 use social media as well as 33% of children 7 to 9 years old. This poll gathered its information by asking the parents. More likely than not, those numbers are even higher with children being known for hiding things from their parents. Also, take into consideration that this poll was 18 months ago when TikTok was just starting to explode.
TikTok, more than any other social media platform, has drawn in children at dizzying rates with its model. With a constant stream of short, funny videos, it can have anyone scrolling endlessly, especially children. But you also have to realize that TikTok is also full of videos of people with very little clothing on, and their profiles have links that can take your child to explicit content with just one click.
According to the California Institute of Behavioral Neurosciences & Psychology, which reviewed 16 studies on the correlation between social media use and mental health, “Depression is one of the unintended significances of unnecessary use of social media. … A new study found that individuals who are involved in social media, games, texts, mobile phones, etc. are more likely to experience depression. The previous study found a 70% increase in self-reported depressive symptoms among the group using social media.” It further stated that those with symptoms of major depression were in those who spent most of their time performing image management on social media, i.e. altering photos to adjust one’s appearance.
The sad reality is there is no end in sight, just like there is no end to mindlessly scrolling through video after video or post after post. I don’t see there being any way for any government entity to regulate anything when it comes to screen and social media usage, especially with children. Ultimately, the only people who can make a difference are parents. But us adults also have to take a good, hard, long look in the mirror ourselves because we are just as guilty of it as children. There are a number of ways to break the cycle. Whether it be deleting time-wasting applications like social media, creating self-boundaries or returning to other things that used to give us joy that didn’t require a screen, we can all take steps to tear our eyes away. It won’t be easy, but when you consider the staggering numbers above, something has to be done to protect the children
in our society.
Joshua Campbell is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him via email at joshuacampbell@columbianprogress.com or call (601) 736-2611.
