(I get way too much satisfaction out of defending social media and screen time than could possibly be healthy. But here we are.)
I just listened to the latest episode of Science Vs, a wonderful podcast that takes controversial topics and, you know, looks at the science around them.
This one was about screen time. You know, the thing that is ruining kids' attention spans, hurting our eyes, turning brains into mush, and making us depressed and lonely. It's the BIG BAD of our current existence. (Much like the written word, telephones, and refrigerators were in their day.)
Except... it's not. Yes, the studies finding potential relationships between screen time and depression (etc) get all the clickbaity headlines, but the research is actually mixed and mostly shows minimal effect, easily mitigated by other things factors like sleep and nutrition and loving parental involvement. (I won't give all the evidence here, that's what the podcast is for and there's a transcript with citations if you want it.)
This is what I'm here to say:
MAYBE instead of blaming something like a SMART PHONE for the fact that we are INCREASINGLY MISERABLE in our collective experience of humanity, we might want to LOOK AROUND and realize that we are living in a SELF-GENERATED DYSTOPIA thanks to late-stage capitalism, COLONIALISM, impending environmental destruction, and a WHITE SUPREMACIST PATRIARCHY that pits us all against each other, creates a rigid ladder and calls it success but only lets a few people climb it, and is literally burning the future of our species.
If anything's going to suck the life out of your heart with a disposable twisty straw that somehow also injects lead into your bones, it's that. We don't need a device to ruin our lives, no matter how addictive its
creators designed it to be. We were doing that just fine all on our own,
THANK YOU.
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