In her Tedx Macatawa talk Living as Gen Z: From Fear to Positive Change, Madi Hammond talks about many things related to life as a member of Generation Z(also known as Zoomers), the term used in the Western world to describe people who were born between the mid 1990s(1995-1997), and the early 2010s(2010-2014). Among other things, she talks about living with the Internet. This reminded me of a topic that I had recently been reading about, the power of social media.
The first time that I came upon this topic(as in the recent time I have been reading about it), was in Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. In the book, Rutger Bregman describes the news and social media as “one of the biggest addictions of our times”. He pointed to scientific studies that showed that people that follow the news daily are more likely to be stressed and depressed, as well as cynic, misanthropic, and pessimistic. As one of his suggestions of how people can live better, he included the suggestions to avoid the news and social media.
By then, I was curious, and I looked up one of the articles in the references, an article in the Business Insider called ‘Silicon Valley Parents Are Raising Their Kids Tech-Free-And It Should Be a Red Flag’. The article is just as the title suggests;it talks about parents who work in tech companies who raise their kids with limited access to electronics at home.
At this point, I remembered a point my friend Steven made when we were talking about
political approval ratings. He said that in modern days, approval ratings fluctuate less than before, because before, people would talk face-to-face, and present their arguments during the conversation. Now, however, most people talk online, and they agree with anyone that shares their political position, and insults people who disagrees with them without going into the why. As a result, people change their political opinions less.
Despite its many downsides(and it’s many upsides), social media is still a major part of our lives that we cannot live without. I prefer to think that as long as the amount of use is limited, it is useful, and the real danger is addiction. I’ll end by quoting James Cook, the current CEO of Apple, “I’m not a person that says we’ve achieved success if you’re using it all the time, I don’t subscribe to that at all.”
