What Have Smartphones Done to Our Young People?
“This ubiquitous device has become a cultural appendage. For Generation Z and Gen Alpha, the smartphone isn’t just a tool—it’s a lifestyle. And that lifestyle is quietly rewiring their brains, stealing their sleep, shrinking their confidence, and fueling a mental health crisis that cannot be ignored.” - Thom Rainer
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As time goes on, we will continue to find that mobile devices and social apps will be the largest detriment to the people. Man seeks to improve our ability to "connect" with those around us, and instead man has created the single most damaging item to mental health in history.
I guess I’m somewhere in the middle on this. Kids should not have smart phones. I tend to think they also should not see any kind of video until maybe age 10. It’s a cognitive development problem. But how do you achieve that in 2025?
The “no smartphones for kids” rule is achievable though.
On the other hand, “the social apps” have allowed me personally to maintain a genuine and real relational connection to distant loved ones that would not have been possible at all without that technology. Oh, we could write letters instead, and I don’t want to say that doesn’t have value. It really does (well, did, back when we wrote letters). But it’s not the same. When you can share little bits of life with far away loved ones every day in almost real time, it’s much more “relational” than exchanges of letters that take weeks in between.
There are upsides to letter writing though!
So, there are tradeoffs… as with most things.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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