Updated 09302022-235055
We hear a lot about "social media" - what I'll call the "social web," here - in popular discourse. In the present (2022,) opining on the social web's effect on its participants is now expected on the news and at the dinner table, but it's often from those who are notably the least affected by it - those who's social lives exist entirely separate. Those of us who are affected the most - that is, young people - and who arguably know the most about the social web seem to still be absent from or minimized within these conversations. Considering the vast majority of the social web is privately owned, the organization we'd normally look toward to keep it in check - the government, generally - has by now proven itself all but completely inept at doing so.
This ineptitude is unique among modern youth-specific afflictions in a potentially dangerous sense. Topical, collective, generation-specific societal woes with consequences for young people are by now familiar challenges. My parents' youths saw Cold War
Do a quick inventory of your technology use—how much time do you spend scrolling any platform, unconsciously asking yourself: why wasn’t I invited? Why aren’t I on that vacation?