Authored by Timothy S. Goeglein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
On Jan. 31, a groundbreaking hearing was held on Capitol Hill as the CEOs of five major social media platforms were called to testify (three only after having to be forced by subpoena) about the alleged harm—sometimes fatal—they have inflicted on America’s youth.
For more than four hours, with family members in the audience who had lost children to suicide, these tech gurus tried to deflect any talk about or accept responsibility for the alleged negative influence of their platforms.
In his recent book, “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt writes: “At the turn of the millennium, technology companies created a set of world-changing products that transformed life not just for adults but for children, too. … Yet, the companies that developed them had done little or no research on the mental health effects. When faced with growing evidence that their products were harming young people, they mostly engaged in denial, obfuscation, and public relations campaigns.”
The result has placed our children in a virtual cage that has isolated them physically, socially, and emotionally—with little hope of escape.
Trapped in this virtual cage, girls suffer massive depression as they face pressure to conform to certain body images, become targeted by predators, and are mocked by their peers if they choose not to participate in an online game of one-upmanship based on looks.
Mr. Haidt states: “The more time a girl spends on social media, the more likely she is to be depressed or anxious. Girls who say they spend five or more hours each weekday on social media are three times as likely to be depressed as those who report no social media time.”
Meanwhile, boys are sucked into a virtual world of video games and pornography, which traps them into a world of perpetual adolescence, with no idea of how to communicate with and treat the opposite sex in a gentlemanly manner, while also keeping them from maturing into responsible men.
Thus, given all this, is it any wonder why the suicide and self-harm rates for adolescents (particularly girls) have dramatically increased from 2010 to 2021, basically from the start of the smartphone/social media platform era to today?
Mr. Haidt concludes: “The overwhelming feeling I get from the families of both boys and girls is that they are trapped and powerless in the face of the biggest mental health crisis in history for their children. What should they—what should we—do?”
To free our children from the virtual cage that has entrapped them, he suggests four types of response: (1) no smartphones before 14 years of age; (2) no access to social media before the age of 16; (3) banning smartphones from schools; and (4) allow more unsupervised play and childhood independence.
But while all of these recommendations are good, they continue to put all of the onus on parents who find themselves standing alone against a tsunami of even more technological dangers, in particular, AI, coming their way.
Smartphones are here to stay, there is no going back, so what we must do is chart a new course going forward. And while we can curse the darkness of the virtual cage our children are trapped in, things will likely not change until Big Tech and social media platforms are forced to change.
That is why it is critical that lawmakers act and reform the present roadblocks that Big Tech and social media platforms use to avoid responsibility for any harm they may have caused. Until that happens, they will continue to give faux apologies and issue nice-sounding press releases while more children get trapped in their virtual cage.
Only then will parents be empowered with the tools to free their children from the technological tyranny that may have damaged an entire generation—and will scar more to come—unless action is taken now.
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More division porn. Seriously. Aren’t we ALL trapped in one cage or another? I can promise most of you that you’re not getting off planet alive. That’s a sort of cage, ain’t it? Damned efficient one too! Surrounded by life sucking vacuum farther than any eye can see in every direction.
Well, here we are, everyday.
And when you have no spiritual understanding of the spiritual laws, like cause and effect, it is definitely another cage. It’s the Awagawan, the wheel of life, never ending births and deaths. I’ll say that magic word that gets me down votes. Reincarnation.
Says who? I haven’t owned a smartphone in years.
Hooray for you. But how do you travel? I only carry mine when traveling.
FFS, you can’t be serious. You don’t know where to buy a paper map and/or how to read the road signs?
Was in Mexico city 8 years ago. I could not get a city map at the tourist booth. You have to down load it. There is no regular phones at big airports for the last 20 years. I found that out when I had to call my brother to be picked up. Yes you can do without it. But it’s beyond inconvenience.
Couldn’t get a map or couldn’t get one in English? I find it hard to believe you couldn’t find a paper map in Spanish in Mexico City.
nah, that’s just a “road’ map to the free shit of ‘merica. paid for by us. Catholic Charities has lots of free maps. To your house.
I sympathize. I do a fair amount of international travel. Upon arrival, fatigiued and jet-lagged, at a major airport, it’s a serious PIA to call home, check in with your office, or contact your pick-up without a cell phone.
Saw your comment and had to give you Kudos, Stephanie. Reading maps and road signs has become a lost art, you know.
We always have paper maps of Missouri in the car. Google maps can, and has, gotten people lost.
We have a Road Atlas for long trips. Google is irreplaceable in cities, though. Have you ever tried to navigate using a city map? I’ve had to do it before, it’s a pain in the ass.
I actually didn’t know. I thought people still read paper maps and road signs. I find GPS to be annoying. It’s too much of a distraction for me.
Your acting Psycho again. Just stop yourself.
*you’re
Since when is reading a paper map a sign of psychopathy?
Psycho is you never get the point. The point was I was at a tourist center. I did not want a map from a book store or any where else. I walked by a tourist center, and thought. Hey I’ll get a map. Obviously, I made do without one. My statement had nothing to do with reading maps. It was they are not made readily available as in former times.
Uh, no. Psycho is short for psychopathy which is a mental illness. I’m not mentally ill because you couldn’t find a map at one place and CHOSE not to look elsewhere. Stop casually calling women ‘psycho’ because you couldn’t be bothered to travel further to find a paper map to purchase.
I’m not psycho; you’re just stupid and lazy.
Careful Steph, he’ll go all existential on you. Could astral project and spank you.
You have obviously never read my posts. I do Soul travel to reach the higher consciousness, not to punish people.
I haven’t seen papers maps for sale in a gas station for over a decade.
You never been to a truck stop? Pilot? Flying J?
Yep, they still have maps. Regular gas stations, not so much, but some do.
As I said, we never travel long distances without them.
We actually downloaded county maps for a 4 county area around us because you never know how useful those could be if we ever need to flee and have to avoid all of the heavily used highways. MoDot has them available for all Missouri counties. Don’t know about other states.
No live in a rural area with no major truck stop chain, older travel little and only close.
I have a collection of maps, Stephanie, including some hand-sketched maps of the old logging roads and camps in these hills.
A little village (possibly five huts) sat in the meadow beside our little creek a hundred years ago.
I have a phone but it stays home a lot.
Good to “see” ya.
Good to see you too. I hope all is well.
It is. As a matter of fact, I sang that with a friend at church just yesterday.
I do a nice harmony, I’m told. I at least don’t suck.
I’d agree MC. Maps for highway destinations, gaggles maps for city navigation is good the get you in the near vicinity of where you want to be.
MC, yes. On GPS, saw the hotel our family was supposed to be staying in the middle of someplace 1/2 mile away saying we were already there. FFS.
We had a lady near were I live drive down a snow covered snowmobile trail in winter and get stuck out in the boonies following her GPS directions. That said, people still have to use their brain with GPS, a snowmobile trail looks nothing like a road.
He doesn’t see Jesus Christ, how is he going to be able to see what is really there?
SS, Coworker and I were just talking about reading maps. If the electronic grid goes down, how will anyone go anywhere without a paper map?
While I agree with you these kids never will unless they would actually confiscate them and quit selling them. If the power is our for a couple of hours they freak out and seek somewhere to charge their phones. Watch young couples out to eat, both sit staring at the phone and they never say a word to each other the whole meal. It is so hard wired into them they will have a nervous breakdown without that phone. These young adults don’t have the self assurance or will to change. It is pathetic, but reality. One problem is the parents that gave them phones as babies to play with just to shut them up. They literally have had a phone in their hands from the day they could hold one.
Yes its disturbing. These fine young ladies probably have a phone in their hand while getting fucked.
Only on vibrate?
They don’t want to destroy the mood?
The guys too, watching porn to get hard while they have a real woman right under them.
All are addicted to their phones.
Nothing you can do
Just like I can’t make it quit raining so I can go OoooAhhhh at the eclipse.
This guy did a good job in Ohio.
I use mine for a lot of things, but mostly phone calls and listening to bible study. When I was still in school I used it more to study. It is a tool. You can take your foot off with a shovel, but why would you?
Take their fucking phones away. Nothing they can do my ass.
Ah yes, the frequently invoked appeal for lawmakers to ‘do something’ aka ‘there oughta be a law’
It seems Mr. Goeglein is thoroughly confused, so this may help: you cannot legislate morality, safety, self-esteem, or anything else that falls under the province of personal responsibility
My smart phone is a treasure trove of useful apps. I don’t use any social apps but am an electrician/mechanical/engineer/machinist/etc./ie. (sucker for punishment). The apps have a wealth of information that takes reams of books to match and would be impossible to take on job sites. I would have zero issues with using a flip phone ie. non smart for communication which would take away tracking abilities from my smart phone and am actually considering doing so.
My smart phone is a treasure trove of useful apps. I don’t use any social apps but am an electrician/mechanical/engineer/machinist/etc./ie. (sucker for punishment). The apps have a wealth of information that takes reams of books to match and would be impossible to take on job sites. I would have zero issues with using a flip phone ie. non smart for communication which would take away tracking abilities from my smart phone and am actually considering doing so.
I am tech challenged and could be wrong but all the recent flip phones I’ve tried in the last few years have tracking you built in. I suppose you could put time and money online and buy a used pre-woke model in 4G that would work for awhile but the recent ones are extremely frustrating and time consuming to program and use for the simplest task…like making and receiving calls…in my experience.
I am surprised that no one has brought up the parents themselves. It is their responsibility to teach their children there is life outside a smartphone, to begin holding children accountable from a young age, so that they understand what personal responsibility is. The fact that the parents want to put all the blame on social media says to me that these parents do not understand personal responsibility.
GenZ’s parents are just as bad as the kids with the phones.
Gen X parents are raising Gen Z kids very differently than Baby Boomers raised Millennials
Our daughters are Gen X and as bad as the kids on their phones.
I should of also mentioned our daughters never had a smart phone or even a flip phone at home, because there were only bag phones until they were grown, out of the house and adults. When they were teens and wanted to talk on the phone all night, we had a wall phone in the hallway and I just took it of the wall and put it in my bedroom at night.
Blaming technology is just giving Gen Z an out for their horrible behavior. Most are given a raw deal in this life, but it’s up to the person if they want to be an insufferable psychotic asshole or not. Gen Z as a majority chose the insufferable route.
A 12-year old versus Zuckerborg’s empire of professional personality twisters for hire. Nah, I think kids can tough it out and wait until 16 for that purple koolaid BS.
But should the MK Mockingbird Wurlitzer-gram ever fear leaderless peasants, than sure, no need for D.C. syndicate’s pawing.
I see you’ve made your choice.
It’s not the technology per se, but the culture around tech. Parents using phones to keep kids quiet, schools giving every kid a tablet. The inability to do so many things, anything other than ‘online’. It drives me nuts.
The media sets the context for your self narrative. You provide the rest. Think of social media as being a magnifying glass and you the speck of light. If you play solely to your self narrative , you will only be that speck of light.
And who created this world they were born into? Take responsibility.
withfamily members in the audience who had lost children to suicide, these tech gurustried to deflect any talk about or accept responsibilityFixed.
Absolutely correct.
Convenience is the wide, smooth road that goes downhill all the way to Hell.
I hate outfits like The Epoch Times. Talk about disinformation. Here’s the money quote. “That is why it is critical that lawmakers act and reform the present roadblocks that Big Tech and social media platforms use to avoid responsibility for any harm they may have caused. Until that happens, they will continue to give faux apologies and issue nice-sounding press releases while more children get trapped in their virtual cage.” Let me translate it for you. We need more laws so we can stop free speech on Twitter and the Burning Platform. By making the owners criminally responsible for the content created by the users. After all it’s hate speech. Cuz we is conservatives. Do it for the children. Total pieces of s*** at that place.
There is no free speech here, or anywhere else. If you offend the advertisers, or hurt revenue in any way, you’re out and forgotten.
No free speech here!?!?
Perhaps you could pull up some references where anyone was restricted in their speech or kicked out because of unsavory ideas spoken. I’d like to see them.
Paragon must be a newbie, Moos.
Bingo. That’s what the whole Tik Tok thing is all about. They want the algos, that’s why there are some big money buyers offering to buy it. Tik Tok has better algos than anything google has come up with. And they want to control it. China can get our information without using Tik Tok.
It is kinda shocking to me that it is suddenly the gadget’s fault for people not participating in society. The gadget was simply a amplifier to a much bigger problem.
What incentive is there for people to participate to begin with? Why would people want to go into our degenerate society on purpose? What meaningful relationships are there?
If everyone lies to each other, then language is meaningless outside of social context. So when language is effectively dead, what replaces it? Gratification of all sorts, and gratification of one’s ego becomes normal, and receiving self-serving gratification from the group leads to a form of self-worship. (Isn’t that called narcissism…)
What happens when we mix the lies and gratification together, all in one’s pocket?
Child zombies holding apples
It is kinda shocking to me that it is suddenly
the gadget’sheroins fault for peoplenot participating in societyusing drugs. It is an addiction. like gambling. like drugs, like sugar.So, parents blame tech companies because they can’t, you know, take the fucking phone away from their kids.
What a piece of shit article. It isn’t the tech companies, it is lack of parenting. And parents want to blame anyone else but themselves.
I am guessing you are of the Baby Boom generation. Not Gen X parent.
So glad we had a Congressional hearing about this. Three had to be forced by subpoena. Wow looks like Congress means business! Congress was virtue signaling as usual they will do nothing. I do not agree with the implied premise that parents are powerless against this technological onslaught. Whatever happed to personal responsibility for yourself and your family? You see kids in classrooms using their cell phones during class. You get more of what you allow. Parents/society have allowed this. Smartphones are made in sweat/slave labor shops in third world counties, yet we all look the other way. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. When it comes to cell phones, I see myself as part of the problem. I need to be like SS and not have one. I think they still sell non smart phones.