Social Media and Social Unrest

When I was young, I would roll my eyes when the adults in the room would lament how the world was going to hell. I listened to their stories about the Great Depression, and the rationing they endured during WWII, and wondered how in the world they could think those times were better than the one we lived in. But while their lives were better from an economic and materialistic perspective, they didn’t like what they saw as a society that was becoming too permissive, self-centered, selfish, and violent. 

I remember hoping I didn’t get like that when I got old, but understand where they were coming from now because I’m feeling the same way about today’s world compared to when I was a kid. While social media isn’t solely to blame for this, it symbolizes what is wrong with the world and has greatly contributed to the dumbing down of this country.

I’m not anti-social media. Its original concept was good and positive. It provides quick access to information, provided one can discern facts from bullshit. It provides platforms to exchange ideas and collaborate. It helps increase digital literacy and connects people. Unfortunately, it also shortens attention spans, spreads misinformation, on-line engagements are often superficial, and in many cases bullying, hurtful and harassing. 

What I see are generations of people not knowing how to have conversations or communicate with one another. All you need to do is go to a mall or any place where there are a lot of people, and you will often see a gaggle sitting next to one another and not say a word because their faces are buried in their phones. Perhaps they are even texting one another.

Likes and virtual friends have replaced real friends and are often the basis of an individual’s self-esteem. Students are relying more on AI to produce schoolwork, so all they are doing is regurgitating something that someone else produced rather than doing their own research and using their own brains. How does that allow anyone to learn and grow? 

It provides a safe environment for cowards of all kinds to pass falsehoods as facts and to relentlessly insult and demean individuals with little or no recourse. Suicide rates among people between ages 10-24 have increased 62% over the last 15-20 years (according to Chat GPT – how ironic). It would be irresponsible to say that social media is the direct cause of this, but it would also be foolish to think it hasn’t has contributed. For those of you who like me are in their mid-sixties, can you imagine what it would have been like going to high school (or college) where a phone with a camera was always nearby to take a picture or video, and your reputation could be slandered with one click?

Social media has been instrumental in creating a toxic brand tribal politics, where anyone can spout blatant falsehoods as facts and have them accepted as gospel by too many people who are either too lazy to do their own research or too naïve to question anything from certain sources. Many of our younger congressional representatives are more interested in getting noticed and accumulating views and likes than accomplishing anything good or positive. All of this has spawned a sour and increasingly pessimistic collective mood in this country. It certainly has for me, and the scary thing is that we haven’t hit rock bottom yet. 

With aging comes perspective and when I compare our collective mindset growing up to what I see today, we have created a culture where it is all about me. We have become lazy, ignorant and more self-centered. We take less personal accountability, have lost our sense of community or collective good, and are beginning to see a rise in the kind of political violence that permeated the late 60’s. I shudder to think how we would react to another depression, or to be forced to accept the rationing of the WWII years.

I am chagrined to discover that I have turned into my elders spouting gloom and doom. Greedy, ego-centric and ambitiously ruthless people who are primarily interested in feathering their nest without concern about how their actions might impact others have always existed and always will. But social media has allowed them to immediately influence the lives of others more directly than ever. It isn’t going away. Perhaps there will be some positive changes once we hit rock bottom, although I can’t imagine what that might be. 

What a sad situation.