People have long complained about television, both in terms of bad behavior of fictional characters and tone of news shows.
At this point, though, young people are far more likely to doom scroll, fantasize about influence or whatever online than they are to be watching television.
It's also worth noting that this is a "teen mental health crisis"- television has been around long enough for several generations to go through teenage years without a similar experience.
> “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
~ Socrates
Seems like every generation is doomed to lose touch with the next generation and pontificate as to why they are the worst generation yet and everything is falling apart.
Late reply, but no. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and basically every single instance of "the next generation is awful because X" has proven to be bullshit for the last 2,500+ years. I don't know how many times we'll have to go through rock & roll panic to reefer madness panic to satanic panic to video games cause violence panic it'll take to make so called "hackers" the least bit skeptical to shit that we learned was bullshit as children. Somehow, some people forget everything that enabled them to be the people they are and want to force their children down a narrow path that they choose. But it's not enough that they choose, they have to dictate what other parents can choose because it's too difficult to say no to little Timmy if his friend's parent's have said yes.
The connection here does seem to be a lot more firm. Teen suicide rates are way up, and they do seem to strongly coincide with widespread smartphone and social media adoption. Do you believe those correlations are just circumstantial?
I have a different theory which is just as plausible.
These teen mental problems are a result in a shift in attitudes in America - the attitude that everyone is a victim, achievement is bad, one should get everything for free rather than the old idea that kids should work for their goodies, the mounds of presents kids get for Christmas, participation awards, everyone gets an A, parental supervision of kids play even into mid teens, testing is bad for kids' self-esteem, kids are too fragile for testing, and so on.
I.e. the old virtues of industriousness, thrift, personal responsibility, etc., have all but disappeared.
For example, in my day (when people walked uphill to school both ways) kids routinely got jobs as soon as they turned 16. Today, many peoples' first jobs are not until they graduate from college. That's a massive change.
Kids need to learn how to deal with adversity as they grow up. Parents these days are able to remove all adversity from kids' lives, up until the mid-teens. Then, parents cannot do that anymore, and the kids have not developed coping skills for adversity. No coping skills, parents can no longer fix it for them, leads to mental health crisis.
I think there's more to it than this, too. There's a greater push to mold kids into activists now than when I grew up.
It used to be that you'd color in some pictures to save the rainforest or the whales. Now, it's we need to radically change society or else climate change will kill us all. Despite more people being killed by fists and feet than rifles, school shootings sound like a daily occurrence and might happen at any moment. Having white skin makes you guilty of having too much privilege. Accidentally calling someone by the wrong gender is practically a crime. If your grades aren't good enough or you don't have enough extracurricular activities for college you'll never make enough money. Anything you say online will haunt you forever. Being popular among your peers doesn't just mean being cool at school, everyone is always online spreading influence. There's no way to turn off anymore, and they're convinced they can't or they'll miss out.
They're literally surrounded by existential crises day in and day out. Going through puberty is hard enough, but somehow we've made it harder for them.
I really appreciate the thorough response. I agree with everything you've said, except for it being the prime cause of the issue. I definitely feel that it's a contributing cause of the issue. Anecdotally, I've had this problem, and it was ultimately something I was able to mature out of. In my opinion, I think the problems you've described can be easily bucketed into a general issue with prolonged immaturity and adolescence. I definitely admit that getting to the primary cause of this issue is tough, and although I feel strongly about social media being one of the more primary causes, I'm not in a position to prove that claim.
Anyhow, I agree. Victimhood is a pernicious belief. People don't understand that it has an appeal to it which must be resisted. I'd describe it as a vice just like anything else: anger, jealousy, etc. These are natural emotions, and they do have their own appeal, despite being "negative." And although it can be difficult, these sorts of feelings must be kept in check for the sake of yourself and others.
Netflix's product isn't as good as social media is for getting past our defenses. Also, TV shows must be made for the masses so the propaganda is frequently obvious and the content is less addictive.
Maybe it's not as good as social media at getting past your defenses (Congratulations! You think you are good at dealing with propaganda!)
But we're talking about societal problems, not your particular case. You've no shortage of neighbours whose brain turns off the moment the boob tube turns on to some talking head screaming about something or other.
At this point, though, young people are far more likely to doom scroll, fantasize about influence or whatever online than they are to be watching television.
It's also worth noting that this is a "teen mental health crisis"- television has been around long enough for several generations to go through teenage years without a similar experience.