Social Media Is Kind Of Awful
I get the outrage over that pretentious french film “Cuties.”
If someone tried to cast my daughter for a film that made prepubescent girls do overtly sexual things I would murder them with my bare hands, and I don’t think anyone would blame me.
It’s gross, it’s perverse and it’s a bad film.
It’s a parents only job to ensure their child is raised safely. It’s a parents job to imprint a moral fabric on their child so they know what’s right and wrong.
I get the outrage over the film.
That being said I think people are getting caught up in the ecstasy of righteous outrage and missing the big picture. It’s very easy to not let a shitty film or a song that is so silly it can only be classified as parody like “Wap” influence your children.
You just don’t let them watch it. If they do watch it you talk to them about it.
There’s a much bigger problem that has a much larger impact on children's mental health and overall well being. This problem won’t have a media campaign behind it and you won’t get the smug satisfaction of sharing a meme about it. It's a problem that is slowly consuming all of us, but no one is talking about it.
The chart below is the rise in suicide, self harm and hospitilization for attempted suicide since 2010-11. That time is important because it’s when social media became widespread and fastened to every phone.
The rise in suicide and self harm among preteen girls has skyrocketed astronomically since social media became the norm for communication. Self harm has risen by 189% in girls aged 10-14 since 2011.
Plastic surgeons recently have been using a term called "Snapchat Filter Disorder" because so many teenage girls ask them to perform surgery so their faces appear as they do when they apply a filter on social media.
Social media is harming young women more than any film or song could. Yet this problem is being ignored.
I’m not qualified to say why that’s happened. I can only recognize that it’s happening.
These charts are from Jonathan Haidt’s “The Coddling of the American Mind”. Very few books have impacted me as strongly. I read it while Catherine was pregnant with Fiona and it forced me to confront my own behaviors on social media.
I’m a social guy so I like participating in discussions, I like teasing Joe Pepe and I like being on social media. However once I spent some time and thought about it, especially considering my addictive past, I realized that it was not moving me closer to the man and father I wanted to be.
I certainly didn’t want Fiona to see daddy’s face buried in a phone. I certainly didn’t want her to think it was normal or encouraged. After reading the chapter on the empirical evidence proving that social media was immensely harmful to young girls' mental health I focused on severely limiting my social media time.
Have I been perfect? Fuck no. This shit is addicting. They know that, and you know that. Whether you’re willing to admit it or not.
Almost 2 years later and I hate social media. If I did not have a company to run and market for I would not be here. I think it’s turned all of us into animals.
It’s designed to overwire our brain and give us quick shots of dopamine that keep us coming back for more. It’s designed to create echo chambers so we slowly become incapable of seeing nuance and beauty in argument.
Those are adult problems. You can solve them easily.
But the effect on children is not something we can expect them to solve on their own. They’re children. It’s your job to teach them and lead them by example.
Instead of getting outraged over things that were designed to cause outrage like that pretentious netflix “film” or that rap song that sounds like it was written by Monty Python you need to be vigilant on a daily basis. You need to take small actions in your own life that will impact the lives of those around you.
Cutting off social media isn’t sexy. You don’t get any points for it. You don’t get to feel satisfied. You definitely don’t get the quick shot of happiness you get from “likes” or “shares”.
However it’s the most punk rock thing you can do in 2020.
The things that cause actual, tangible change are small. Your choices and their impact on your tiny world are what cause change. Setting a good example for 2 people in your life, who follow your lead, will cause more change in the world than any online argument or social media status.
Social media is designed to put outrage in your face. It’s designed to play on your emotions. If you’re easily outraged you’re easily manipulated.
Your written words of outrage change nothing. Your behavior changes a lot. Make the right choice. You can't #savethechildren by sharing memes on your facebook. You save the children by showing them how to live properly and acting daily against the things that are causing genuine harm.
Don't just virtue signal. Lead a life of virtue so you can have true impact on the world.
