Well this is not a surprise. It turns out that social media and cellphone use have little to no effect on the mental well-being of teenagers. And, having just hung out with more than 10,000 young people in Vancouver, I’d say that they seem to be doing pretty well,
(if the video does not display, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdyBpfYvxs4).
Unfortunately, these wonderful young people are not to be confused with the very many utter creeps, idiots, paid lackeys of oil companies, bizarrely de-evolved evolution-deniers (not to mention climate-change deniers), and haters of all things decent who felt compelled to contribute to the live chat displayed alongside the YouTube video linked to above, as well as to far too many of the subsequent comments. This is what raw, unfiltered sets (the largely anonymous, non-networked social form that dominates on YouTube and many other social media) look like. The insane, the evil, and the stupid (often a mix of all three) have voices at least as loud as those who have something reasonable or human to say, and they have a platform where at least a few other people with ugly, broken souls will help them to feel validated, so they feel even more compelled to say the stupid, ugly, evil things they say. How dare they? Perhaps some of them are also children but, from many of the comments, I’d say that most have reached voting age. It’s not the kids that we need to worry about, apart from that they may be being brought up by such vile excuses for humanity, and that they have to learn to make sense of the stuff swamp of social media systems that enable such voices to be loudly heard.
When I hear Greta Thunberg talk it consistently brings tears to my eyes and sends shivers down my spine. She is astonishingly wonderful and deeply, deeply inspiring. She is brave, she is brilliant, she is right. She is not proposing anything apart from that politicians take action now on an unequivocal, plain to see, planet-wide threat, that is caused by problems that we know how to solve, and that demands political action. Yes, that will disrupt the lives of people that have profited from our collective madness – that is to say, most of us (but it is a hell of a lot less disruption than the alternative, at least for those not due to die any time soon). Yes, it is really difficult to make it happen. Yes, it means we will all have to change some of our ways, but that is no bad thing: our lives, and those of our children, and those of most of the living things on our planet, will be better as a result. And no, it is not her job to propose solutions, and she very deliberately does not try to do so, though she lives her life according to her convictions and does what she sees as necessary as an individual fighting the climate crisis. When she talks she simply states – with immense, infectious, intense passion – what is wrong, and demands that those who can fix it should do so. I am deeply humbled by this amazing teenager. We should all be.
Do buy the cheap, slim volume of her speeches, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. It is an inspiring book, and the proceeds will all go to charity.
Originally posted at: https://landing.athabascau.ca/bookmarks/view/4949999/social-media-has-not-destroyed-a-generation-%C2%A0-scientific-american
