Part of it is the fear of being victimized. You can’t be phished, stalked, hurt, or taken advantage of if you disengage from the situations that make such victimization possible.
Some of that comes from having all the world’s problems immediately dumped into your smartphone 24/7/365. The human psyche cannot handle unrelenting evidence of tragedy everywhere. No wonder no one feels safe and subsequently withdraws.
Also, mistakes seem to be punished more severely. There is so much official bureaucracy surrounding or gatekeeping everything, one misstep when engaging it can mire you in it and potentially be ruinous. Better not to engage at all than risk engaging wrongly and incurring the wrath of the government, business, social, or cultural entity you “wronged.” The religious concept of grace is in short supply everywhere, and people feel the mercilessness and withdraw.
Dan! You’ve captured a lot of what’s driving people to pull back these days.
The constant barrage of bad news, the fear of making a mistake in a world where there’s little room for error or forgiveness—it’s overwhelming. I find that disengaging feels safer when the risks of getting hurt or trapped by bureaucracy seem so high. It’s like people are choosing self-preservation over connection because the stakes just feel too high.
How do you think we can start to bring more of that back into our lives?
Disengage not from people but from devices. Instead of engaging devices, put them in a drawer someplace and start connecting with people. Go to events in your community. Hang out in public spaces. Join a book club. Go to a dining meetup. Play board games at a game store. Or combine those last two and host board games and dinner at your place. Most of all, start attending a house of worship (by every study I have seen, few opportunities are more beneficial than this one).
Do whatever it takes to engage people. But most of all, be the bigger person. If someone slights you, brush it off and do not retaliate. Live by the Golden Rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Those are good ways to start to turn it around. If more people do that, maybe we can start a revolution.
And on top of that, I think Gen Z is getting punished more severely for mistakes in their inner circles as well. We consume all this Insta-Therapy content on boundary setting and not tolerating any negative experience from anyone, even from your dearest friends. It's either show up as your perfectly curated persona or don't bother. We're isolating because there is a lack of grace for our flawed, real selves.
While my parents may have been "wronged" by a friend (who is an imperfect person, who has good and bad phases) several times over the course of a 30 year friendship, it feels like any misstep I take with Gen Z friends may result in a total removal from their lives.
The boundaries thing is a pernicious evil. After a while, no one meets the criteria for passing through the boundaries.
Everyone needs to grow up. Become an adult. Learn to deal with difficult people. Learn to be humble—the world does not revolve around you or me. The likelihood is that we are the difficult person if we look around and our boundaries have pushed everyone out but us and our enablers. That's a hard truth, but we have got to stop being outraged by hard truths.
No, that started earlier. I noticed it in the late 1990's. I recall having conversations about the shunning of relative in the early 2000's. It was bizarre to me then. The women I was speaking about this with told me that it is a result of women having more power in families. They also said the reason why Universities were becoming hot beds of judgement and shame were also women gaining power.
Reputation destruction and shame are the preferred tools of female homo sapiens. Men all suffer from rage. We do really stupid things until our testosterone levels settle down. As a result, we learn to forgive and to accept forgiveness. I suspect that women do not experience life the same way, so they lack empathy in this way. In general, I have found that many women are very comfortable dishing out summary punishments. Men are okay accepting far more severe physical punishment, but we loathe to shun and shame. I have found women to be the exact opposite. We can see this in how men with criminal records are effectively shut out of employment by women who control HR departments. Similarly, women are keen to fire someone who has a bad day and lashes out, but will tolerate horrific manipulation and cry bullying.
I think this is a natural change resulting from female empowerment. The future world will involve dramatically more social isolation and shame, and physical violence will be less tolerated. Because of this, I would expect to see increasing levels of domestic violence (the anger has to go somewhere), and men adapting to female environments with ever greater sophistication (secret violence).
We long ago entered a brave new world. The women who broke into male spaces adopted male preferences (they had to). The next generation is putting a female touch on office politics and family life. We should expect more dangerous, shame-filled workplaces, and more men being shut out of them. Of course, this will lead to more crime and violence, probably much of it directed at women. I am not sure if it is an improvement, but we will be told that it is. A future of prisons filled with minority men and a society marked by broken homes. I think we are almost there, to the feminist Promised Land.
You’ve highlighted a real challenge in modern friendships. Do you think this strict approach to relationships is sustainable, or will there be a shift toward more understanding and forgiveness over time?
I’m not sure, but I hope this type of constructive dialogue helps shift the over correction I’m seeing when it comes to grace and forgiveness in friendships. At least, I’ve been calling myself out more for this behavior and reaching out to friends I’ve removed from my life over something relatively benign. So I feel hopeful.
Thank you, Freya, for this piece and stoking the discussion that must ensue before we lose so many peeps forever. My GenX heart aches because of the techno-crack environment we’ve brought upon ourselves and y’all are suffering the most. I consider it my social duty to gently interact with younger people I come into contact with in the world and “chit chat” with them. I would say about 50% of the time they are uncomfortable but by the end of the encounter they realize no harm has come to them. Maybe there’s even a positive buzz from being in contact with another real-life human? Brains are elastic, and they can learn to do this, it’s not too late. The older generations are largely responsible and we have to do better. It is our job to TEACH what our batshit American society has taken away. PLEASE, everyone, especially older peeps, let’s start up the art of the chit-chat again. The options on the table are conversation or violence. The less conversation, the less social cohesion, the easier it is to consider your neighbor a “non-human.” Praying for you, Freya, and all the youth and for everyone to find our way back to a functioning society.
I am another Gen X, father of a 22 and 19 year old. This disconnected that also affects many adults but not to the same degree is something I can Severed Conscience, and it is indeed induced from social media overuse and addition. And it is my generations’s fault that we thought it ok to just at our phones and be hero’s on twitter while our children’s time for development just dwindled away as we let them sit on screens as well. The easy baby sitter.
For my families part we severely limited phone time, on trips or camping when we ate no phones. And I have to say even 10 years ago we would get comments on how we were one of the few families in the diner / restaurant that had no phones out and were at least talking to each other.
We saw other families fall prey to online addiction - as a Scout leader I can’t tell you how many dads had the phones out at the end of the day. Back then I was annoyed that they weren’t supervising their kids, but in retrospect it is more frightening because it says how long we have let this problem persist. It has really destroyed a generation.
Growing up, sometime the shy kid could find comfort in being good at performing - social media in a sense provides that outlet but it is in isolation. We do need to force our kids out of the comfort zone, fail with their friends. Nothing is better than discovering that the buddy you thought was great at everything struggles too. That’s a gift.
There are some of us in Gen X who are hoping we can make a difference yet. We spawned this, we should try to clean up the mess.
As my psychiatric practice went into the 2000s something new began happening. Early teens with school phobia began to come for consultations with their parents. They just couldn't enter the school building. There was not much more wrong in most cases. Just profound situational anxiety. I left clinical practice but hear from colleagues that this is no longer a trickle, but a torrent. Now I am very worried about the coming effect of AI on this problem. Kids will not longer have their two-dimensional, controllable relationships on social media. They will have AI friends (like the Friend pendant you feature--I sent this to Jon just 2 days ago). They will be able to design each friend. The smart one, the funny one, the artsy one, etc. They'll all be great friends. No friction. No drama. And especially no new people to deal with, no conflict, noawkwardness when you're suddenly alone with your crush, etc. The muscles of our social beings will atrophy and with it our connections to others and our mental health. Make no mistake, lonely people will love their AI friends. Everything will finally be fine. If life were only that simple. I could quote countless lines of research to show that this will not work and mental illness (whether anxiety and depression which will become more common, or more serious mental illness which will become harder to treat. This is all already happening) will become more prevalent. Technology will solve many of our physical ailments and problems. Infections, famine, you name it. (Yes, there are problems here too. Mostly due to lack of political will). The side effect of all this though is more mental illness and less well being. Jon, Zach, and Freya have been talking about it, as have I. If we do not face up to what is happening we will have a large class of mentally impaired people. More funding for clinics or neuroscience, although helpful, is not the answer. Putting down our work and our devices and going outside to meet our neighbors is the way to start. Letting our kids do the same is next.
Some people do not require or even like touch. In any case, there are many lonely people who will feel better with their AI friends. They will not be better. Just feel less alone.
Dr. Rego, I appreciate your point of view as a physician. One cannot force someone to change, they have to move slowly in that direction. I do feel such compassion for these kids. My Boomer generation had our own challenges, with the Vietnam War and the social upheaval of the 1960's. At least we got outdoors and rambled around. I do not have a love for AI, although I know it will not go away. I do not use AI helpers, I prefer the hard way. Even I myself, at my Elder age of nearly 72, do need plenty of solitude. I do have my dear church and friends I can bounce off with prayer and study and discussion and hugs as needed, usually over food! That being said, while I am not pushing human contact on kids, the AI friend is not real and will not be the "iron sharpens iron" capacity that helps us grow as humans. As much as I dislike so much conflict, it is the push and pull of human life that nudges us to grow beyond our four walls. I do thank you for your take on this, however and I respect your knowledge. Wendy
Wendy--just to be clear, I am not advocating AI for lonely people. Just the opposite. But I am saying that much like a drug it will make people feel better in the short term (or longer). That is the real danger. If it didin't do this there would be little to worry about.
Dr. Rego, thank you for clarifying for me, that helps. That is why the comment section is so helpful for me as a writer here on Substack, one can listen to others and get perspectives and understanding. I will continue to advocate for Gen. Z in my writing. My Boomer generation certainly had our sorrows with Vietnam and social upheaval and of course my parents had the Great Depression and WW2. Each gen. has their difficulties as well as blessings. Thank you again!
Hi Wendy, I think you inadvertently hit the nail on the head about another key issue of Gen Z with your comment. I feel that Gen Z are unable to be alone with themselves, more fundamentally they seem to be afraid to be alone with their selves; stirring an anxiety that they try to address by being chronically online or plugged in to social media and the internet. The most important relationship we have is the one we have with our self, and opting to wear an AI pendant around your neck 24/7 instead of being alone from time to time is telling as to how the relationship with the self is faring. Also thanks for sharing a bit of your story and history, one would certainly wonder how Gen Z would fare if they had to experience the year that was 1968 without the amenities and luxuries afforded to them today.
Wow, thank you, joy/sorrow, for your comment back to me. I sincerely appreciate it. I have one final piece coming out hopefully tonight, addressing Gen. Z with some compassion. Yes, 1968 was a very rough year for me, with my brother Tom being killed in Vietnam. I think the act of writing is a good catharsis and I will continue to use that to share from my own life experiences and hope that at least a person or two, be encouraged to not make the mistakes I did. I appreciate your depth of understanding about the temperaments of Gen. Z being chronically online and plugged in to social media. I enjoy being online, even at 71, but I actually turn off my modem and smart phone when I go to sleep. I need a break! Thank you again! Wendy
Thanks Freya. As a late Boomer with Gen Z kids you give us hope for the future of this generation. Please stay strong. You have a great heart and passion that is making a difference for this troubled cohort.
Wonderful piece Freya. It offers terrific insights that feel very real and nuanced. One response I have, is that those other Gen Zers who tell you to not say anything, just suck it up and accept it, are likely doing that purely out of their own self interest. They are likely the ones who think this kind of culture works for them, because they feel more successful in that online environment, being influencers (or wannabe influencers) or whatever. But in reality they may just be more messed up by it than you are.
The other thing I would mention, is about that anxiety you and others are feeling about the things you missed out on. One way or another everyone feels that way about their teenage years. I still do, decades later. And though your experience of that is likely much more intense than it was for those my age, it doesn't make you a freak generation. What you experienced, and what you’re feeling now, still falls within the normal range of being (and having been) a teenager.
And it's easy to say this, but there's no point in dwelling on it. It happens to everyone, and helps make us who we are. And it's important to remind ourselves that we never finish becoming who we are, until we're dead - or might as well be. So there's still time for you and others in your generation to make up for what you may feel you have lost. But as you say, that means going out and living it NOW.
And one more thing. I can pretty much promise you that ten years from now you will look back on this time and realize how much you had going for you, how much energy you had, and how much you were able to do. So don’t waste it, and as a result give yourself more anxiety about what you’re missing out on today.
Unfortunately this may be partly due to the way these brains developed during their 'hyper-plastic' stage. Windows of neuro-development are age-opportunistic and primed for learning about social engagement between the ages of about 10 - 14.
We don't get a re-do with them and so these brains will have to be taught to feel safe and engage with others but are very unlikely to have the innate, natural ability that brains who didn't engage similarly with technology have.
This may sound very negative but it's just the way brains develop - we can't argue against it because it's uncomfortable to address.
And unfortunately there’s a whole cohort of kids who were in that critical window during the COVID lockdowns and missed out on normal human interaction during that time.
"Windows of neuro-development are age-opportunistic and primed for learning about social engagement between the ages of about 10 - 14." Agreed. I believe this applies to people who missed out on other (earlier) social stages as well, often with more severe consequences. Not to mention those that may be genetically or otherwise biologically predisposed or otherwise constrained independent of environment.
Therefore, Freya's blanket advice "the only thing scarier than the real world is never being brave enough to enter it" is simply not accurate, except in aggregate. I found out the hard way numerous times, despite receiving both broadcast and personal attempts coaxing bravery, just how severe the consequences of social engagement can be.
Sadly the offline world also supports that fear of taking part. You go to a supermarket and in many cases the traditional check-out where you have a human scanning your products is non-existent. Bank branches are closing down so the only customer service is online via chat robots or automated telephone conversation with another AI-run system. How do we stop this?
There are those who say that the desire to transition, especially for young teen girls ("clusters" also correlated with social media) is often about fear of becoming a woman. I would associate that with the same kind of intimidating influences, positive (you need to look like this) and negative (bad or harmful eperiences). These things have always existed, but I don't know why social media seems to enforce and magnify group conformity. My guess would be that it abstracts people more, the fullness of human experience and what a human being is, is not there
Agree. We’ve been scaring the crap out of kids for a while. They don’t want to grow up. Best we can do is ease them into it and be there when they fail.
It's exactly what it sounds like: a subreddit dedicated to people living alone. One of the most illuminating things about reddit is seeing how people can form an identity around *anything*. Most posts there are positive in tone, extolling the virtues of social atomization and "peaceful" living, but I can't help but interpret them all as cries for help. I don't know what to do, what lever needs to be pulled, but humans aren't supposed to live this way.
Autism is everywhere too. Out of 9 old school friends, three of us have kids with autism. All boys. None of us have autism ourselves. And when I say they have autism, I mean they need to use Makaton to communicate, they have these intense verbal stimming moments, they often space out and struggle or can't answer questions etc. Could some of these teens have a combination of autism and social anxiety from modern influences?
Hi Lara, Jon and Zach have indeed catalogued the rise in psychiatric disorders since 2010. The findings do indicate a rise in autism, ADHD, eating disorders, self-harm, etc., specifically a larger rise in developmental disorders for boys (ASD and ADHD) while girls are more prone to eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and self-harm.
While there certainly could be some development of autism from excessive early social media usage, there are certainly other factors that can be responsible. A big one for autism is diet as there is a strong link between gastrointestinal issues and autism, specifically in regards to the composition of microbes that colonize the gut. It's definitely a newer scientific discovery, but I do believe it's the strongest contributor to the rise of autism.
ADHD on the hand I'm more inclined to lay at the feet of social media, with the constant consumption of short-form content on platforms like TikTok being reasonable explanations for the decreasing attention spans. Additionally if you ever look at some of the influencers whose content that Gen Z and Gen Alpha consume (people like IShowSpeed or xQc), they make a strong case for ADHD being contagious.
ADHD is not from social media. I went undiagnosed until I was 41. They were not looking for it in women or girls. ADHD develops in early childhood. My brother has it. My dad definitely had it. Never got diagnosed.
I agree social media does not HELP anything, but it’s already difficult enough to get diagnosed and treated for ADHD.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I certainly did not mean for it to come across that I think that ADHD is borne purely though social media usage. You are totally correct that ADHD has traditionally been underdiagnosed for girls and adults. However, I am not wont to exculpate the phone-based childhood from playing a role, specifically in regards to the rise of ADHD diagnoses that I was referring to, especially amongst children and adolescents. There's a growing body of information that excessive screen usage early in childhood impedes brain development.
Children also extensively prone to imitation (not to say adults don't imitate) and I think there is something to be said specifically about kids consuming hours upon hours of content from influencers that is marred with impulsive, capricious, and irascible behavior. This is the other point I wanted to get across in terms of social media being a contributing factor to a more restless and certainly more inattentive youth.
Of course I do not want to conflate raw inattention with ADHD, but I am hesitant to wave away the rise in ADHD and its symptoms as solely being the product of parity in diagnoses or instances of Munchausen syndrome, especially in regards to the increase of early diagnoses.
Thanks for the great article. I agree what you're describing is a new and serious problem. I didn't like to talk on the phone as a teenager, but I'm old enough that I didn't really have a choice - there wasn't any other way to communicate over long distances (other than letters, I guess). it's very unfortunate that the communication methods we have now are a) more impersonal and b) profitable to major corporations that have every incentive to prevent people from communicating in more traditional ways. I don't know how to fix this problem aside from eliminating the technological "conveniences" from your life. Kudos to those like Freya who have started to do this!
> Many young people even fear making phone calls, and avoid it as much as possible.
To be fair, I try to avoid phone calls as much as possible too, especially of the business variety (customer service, etc.) Not out of fear or anxiety, but simply because so many of them tend to be obnoxious and could be done so much more easily and quickly on a website.
I spent the first half of my adult life essentially devoting all my time and energy to getting money together for the sole purpose of going to see live music: concerts in my town, concerts two hours away, concerts 24 hours’ drive away (drove to Denver a couple times to see shows, from Alabama!). It wasn’t exactly the smartest career move to make but God was it thrilling. And lots of friends to see and make along the way. I don’t regret it even a tiny bit. And you don’t have to be some social butterfly; you just have to care about the music and talk about it with others.
Do people in their 20s still do this very much? I’d be sad to hear that this died out or declined severely, but I do feel like I see zoomers at shows. I’m not some kind of expert at determining someone’s age by looking at them, though, so who knows. All I know is music will give you happiness and joy if you let it, and the surest way to experience that is at an actual concert. So I hope the zoomers and their even younger cousins (whatever we’re calling them) aren’t missing out on this lovely perk of being alive.
I think music is just as big for the youth as any other generation, but how they consume it has slightly changed. The rise of online concerts has also changed some music is consumed, especially given the multi-media nature. Take for instance the online concerts held in Minecraft or Fortnite.
I don't think it's a big leap to say that these attendees skew heavily towards being zoomers. Not to mention TikTok, regardless of what you think of it, came from musical.ly an app designed around incorporating music into social media. So I definitely think that there still is a hunger for music from Gen Z. Of course, that still doesn't account for taste...
Every personality type and every subculture has a public outlet now. Some will thrive and some will suffer depending on the surrounding environment and social context. For many scenarios a person might encounter in life, you will have people who like it and people who hate it (and a lot of indifference). As our relationships mediated through technology shift in form and substance, different types of people will respond positively or negatively.
People with a propensity for social anxiety, millions of them, now have a venue for complaining about that experience and bonding with like-minded sufferers. The flip side is that the people who are hip and cool and outgoing and adventurous now get to document their exploits online and become "influencers", some even making a living off of monetizing other people's fascination with their lifestyles.
Point is, there's always been shy kids, and social butterflies. Now we can see a full cross section of humanity categorized by hashtag, and how they react differently to the same situations. You don't learn much just by pointing to examples of some people having a bad time, when you could equally scan the frequency band for other folks having a blast.
Part of it is the fear of being victimized. You can’t be phished, stalked, hurt, or taken advantage of if you disengage from the situations that make such victimization possible.
Some of that comes from having all the world’s problems immediately dumped into your smartphone 24/7/365. The human psyche cannot handle unrelenting evidence of tragedy everywhere. No wonder no one feels safe and subsequently withdraws.
Also, mistakes seem to be punished more severely. There is so much official bureaucracy surrounding or gatekeeping everything, one misstep when engaging it can mire you in it and potentially be ruinous. Better not to engage at all than risk engaging wrongly and incurring the wrath of the government, business, social, or cultural entity you “wronged.” The religious concept of grace is in short supply everywhere, and people feel the mercilessness and withdraw.
Dan! You’ve captured a lot of what’s driving people to pull back these days.
The constant barrage of bad news, the fear of making a mistake in a world where there’s little room for error or forgiveness—it’s overwhelming. I find that disengaging feels safer when the risks of getting hurt or trapped by bureaucracy seem so high. It’s like people are choosing self-preservation over connection because the stakes just feel too high.
How do you think we can start to bring more of that back into our lives?
Sol, the obvious solution is to do a 180.
Disengage not from people but from devices. Instead of engaging devices, put them in a drawer someplace and start connecting with people. Go to events in your community. Hang out in public spaces. Join a book club. Go to a dining meetup. Play board games at a game store. Or combine those last two and host board games and dinner at your place. Most of all, start attending a house of worship (by every study I have seen, few opportunities are more beneficial than this one).
Do whatever it takes to engage people. But most of all, be the bigger person. If someone slights you, brush it off and do not retaliate. Live by the Golden Rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Those are good ways to start to turn it around. If more people do that, maybe we can start a revolution.
Sure - when caves become communities!
you CAN be punished - it's called being a hermit
And on top of that, I think Gen Z is getting punished more severely for mistakes in their inner circles as well. We consume all this Insta-Therapy content on boundary setting and not tolerating any negative experience from anyone, even from your dearest friends. It's either show up as your perfectly curated persona or don't bother. We're isolating because there is a lack of grace for our flawed, real selves.
While my parents may have been "wronged" by a friend (who is an imperfect person, who has good and bad phases) several times over the course of a 30 year friendship, it feels like any misstep I take with Gen Z friends may result in a total removal from their lives.
The boundaries thing is a pernicious evil. After a while, no one meets the criteria for passing through the boundaries.
Everyone needs to grow up. Become an adult. Learn to deal with difficult people. Learn to be humble—the world does not revolve around you or me. The likelihood is that we are the difficult person if we look around and our boundaries have pushed everyone out but us and our enablers. That's a hard truth, but we have got to stop being outraged by hard truths.
No, that started earlier. I noticed it in the late 1990's. I recall having conversations about the shunning of relative in the early 2000's. It was bizarre to me then. The women I was speaking about this with told me that it is a result of women having more power in families. They also said the reason why Universities were becoming hot beds of judgement and shame were also women gaining power.
Reputation destruction and shame are the preferred tools of female homo sapiens. Men all suffer from rage. We do really stupid things until our testosterone levels settle down. As a result, we learn to forgive and to accept forgiveness. I suspect that women do not experience life the same way, so they lack empathy in this way. In general, I have found that many women are very comfortable dishing out summary punishments. Men are okay accepting far more severe physical punishment, but we loathe to shun and shame. I have found women to be the exact opposite. We can see this in how men with criminal records are effectively shut out of employment by women who control HR departments. Similarly, women are keen to fire someone who has a bad day and lashes out, but will tolerate horrific manipulation and cry bullying.
I think this is a natural change resulting from female empowerment. The future world will involve dramatically more social isolation and shame, and physical violence will be less tolerated. Because of this, I would expect to see increasing levels of domestic violence (the anger has to go somewhere), and men adapting to female environments with ever greater sophistication (secret violence).
We long ago entered a brave new world. The women who broke into male spaces adopted male preferences (they had to). The next generation is putting a female touch on office politics and family life. We should expect more dangerous, shame-filled workplaces, and more men being shut out of them. Of course, this will lead to more crime and violence, probably much of it directed at women. I am not sure if it is an improvement, but we will be told that it is. A future of prisons filled with minority men and a society marked by broken homes. I think we are almost there, to the feminist Promised Land.
You’ve highlighted a real challenge in modern friendships. Do you think this strict approach to relationships is sustainable, or will there be a shift toward more understanding and forgiveness over time?
I’m not sure, but I hope this type of constructive dialogue helps shift the over correction I’m seeing when it comes to grace and forgiveness in friendships. At least, I’ve been calling myself out more for this behavior and reaching out to friends I’ve removed from my life over something relatively benign. So I feel hopeful.
Thank you, Freya, for this piece and stoking the discussion that must ensue before we lose so many peeps forever. My GenX heart aches because of the techno-crack environment we’ve brought upon ourselves and y’all are suffering the most. I consider it my social duty to gently interact with younger people I come into contact with in the world and “chit chat” with them. I would say about 50% of the time they are uncomfortable but by the end of the encounter they realize no harm has come to them. Maybe there’s even a positive buzz from being in contact with another real-life human? Brains are elastic, and they can learn to do this, it’s not too late. The older generations are largely responsible and we have to do better. It is our job to TEACH what our batshit American society has taken away. PLEASE, everyone, especially older peeps, let’s start up the art of the chit-chat again. The options on the table are conversation or violence. The less conversation, the less social cohesion, the easier it is to consider your neighbor a “non-human.” Praying for you, Freya, and all the youth and for everyone to find our way back to a functioning society.
I am another Gen X, father of a 22 and 19 year old. This disconnected that also affects many adults but not to the same degree is something I can Severed Conscience, and it is indeed induced from social media overuse and addition. And it is my generations’s fault that we thought it ok to just at our phones and be hero’s on twitter while our children’s time for development just dwindled away as we let them sit on screens as well. The easy baby sitter.
For my families part we severely limited phone time, on trips or camping when we ate no phones. And I have to say even 10 years ago we would get comments on how we were one of the few families in the diner / restaurant that had no phones out and were at least talking to each other.
We saw other families fall prey to online addiction - as a Scout leader I can’t tell you how many dads had the phones out at the end of the day. Back then I was annoyed that they weren’t supervising their kids, but in retrospect it is more frightening because it says how long we have let this problem persist. It has really destroyed a generation.
Growing up, sometime the shy kid could find comfort in being good at performing - social media in a sense provides that outlet but it is in isolation. We do need to force our kids out of the comfort zone, fail with their friends. Nothing is better than discovering that the buddy you thought was great at everything struggles too. That’s a gift.
There are some of us in Gen X who are hoping we can make a difference yet. We spawned this, we should try to clean up the mess.
Your GenX heart is onto something important here.
God bless 🧡
As my psychiatric practice went into the 2000s something new began happening. Early teens with school phobia began to come for consultations with their parents. They just couldn't enter the school building. There was not much more wrong in most cases. Just profound situational anxiety. I left clinical practice but hear from colleagues that this is no longer a trickle, but a torrent. Now I am very worried about the coming effect of AI on this problem. Kids will not longer have their two-dimensional, controllable relationships on social media. They will have AI friends (like the Friend pendant you feature--I sent this to Jon just 2 days ago). They will be able to design each friend. The smart one, the funny one, the artsy one, etc. They'll all be great friends. No friction. No drama. And especially no new people to deal with, no conflict, noawkwardness when you're suddenly alone with your crush, etc. The muscles of our social beings will atrophy and with it our connections to others and our mental health. Make no mistake, lonely people will love their AI friends. Everything will finally be fine. If life were only that simple. I could quote countless lines of research to show that this will not work and mental illness (whether anxiety and depression which will become more common, or more serious mental illness which will become harder to treat. This is all already happening) will become more prevalent. Technology will solve many of our physical ailments and problems. Infections, famine, you name it. (Yes, there are problems here too. Mostly due to lack of political will). The side effect of all this though is more mental illness and less well being. Jon, Zach, and Freya have been talking about it, as have I. If we do not face up to what is happening we will have a large class of mentally impaired people. More funding for clinics or neuroscience, although helpful, is not the answer. Putting down our work and our devices and going outside to meet our neighbors is the way to start. Letting our kids do the same is next.
But AI friends are not real and have no soul...and cannot give you a hug or an authentic smile.
Some people do not require or even like touch. In any case, there are many lonely people who will feel better with their AI friends. They will not be better. Just feel less alone.
Dr. Rego, I appreciate your point of view as a physician. One cannot force someone to change, they have to move slowly in that direction. I do feel such compassion for these kids. My Boomer generation had our own challenges, with the Vietnam War and the social upheaval of the 1960's. At least we got outdoors and rambled around. I do not have a love for AI, although I know it will not go away. I do not use AI helpers, I prefer the hard way. Even I myself, at my Elder age of nearly 72, do need plenty of solitude. I do have my dear church and friends I can bounce off with prayer and study and discussion and hugs as needed, usually over food! That being said, while I am not pushing human contact on kids, the AI friend is not real and will not be the "iron sharpens iron" capacity that helps us grow as humans. As much as I dislike so much conflict, it is the push and pull of human life that nudges us to grow beyond our four walls. I do thank you for your take on this, however and I respect your knowledge. Wendy
Wendy--just to be clear, I am not advocating AI for lonely people. Just the opposite. But I am saying that much like a drug it will make people feel better in the short term (or longer). That is the real danger. If it didin't do this there would be little to worry about.
Dr. Rego, thank you for clarifying for me, that helps. That is why the comment section is so helpful for me as a writer here on Substack, one can listen to others and get perspectives and understanding. I will continue to advocate for Gen. Z in my writing. My Boomer generation certainly had our sorrows with Vietnam and social upheaval and of course my parents had the Great Depression and WW2. Each gen. has their difficulties as well as blessings. Thank you again!
Hi Wendy, I think you inadvertently hit the nail on the head about another key issue of Gen Z with your comment. I feel that Gen Z are unable to be alone with themselves, more fundamentally they seem to be afraid to be alone with their selves; stirring an anxiety that they try to address by being chronically online or plugged in to social media and the internet. The most important relationship we have is the one we have with our self, and opting to wear an AI pendant around your neck 24/7 instead of being alone from time to time is telling as to how the relationship with the self is faring. Also thanks for sharing a bit of your story and history, one would certainly wonder how Gen Z would fare if they had to experience the year that was 1968 without the amenities and luxuries afforded to them today.
Wow, thank you, joy/sorrow, for your comment back to me. I sincerely appreciate it. I have one final piece coming out hopefully tonight, addressing Gen. Z with some compassion. Yes, 1968 was a very rough year for me, with my brother Tom being killed in Vietnam. I think the act of writing is a good catharsis and I will continue to use that to share from my own life experiences and hope that at least a person or two, be encouraged to not make the mistakes I did. I appreciate your depth of understanding about the temperaments of Gen. Z being chronically online and plugged in to social media. I enjoy being online, even at 71, but I actually turn off my modem and smart phone when I go to sleep. I need a break! Thank you again! Wendy
there are sex robots...
Thanks Freya. As a late Boomer with Gen Z kids you give us hope for the future of this generation. Please stay strong. You have a great heart and passion that is making a difference for this troubled cohort.
Wonderful piece Freya. It offers terrific insights that feel very real and nuanced. One response I have, is that those other Gen Zers who tell you to not say anything, just suck it up and accept it, are likely doing that purely out of their own self interest. They are likely the ones who think this kind of culture works for them, because they feel more successful in that online environment, being influencers (or wannabe influencers) or whatever. But in reality they may just be more messed up by it than you are.
The other thing I would mention, is about that anxiety you and others are feeling about the things you missed out on. One way or another everyone feels that way about their teenage years. I still do, decades later. And though your experience of that is likely much more intense than it was for those my age, it doesn't make you a freak generation. What you experienced, and what you’re feeling now, still falls within the normal range of being (and having been) a teenager.
And it's easy to say this, but there's no point in dwelling on it. It happens to everyone, and helps make us who we are. And it's important to remind ourselves that we never finish becoming who we are, until we're dead - or might as well be. So there's still time for you and others in your generation to make up for what you may feel you have lost. But as you say, that means going out and living it NOW.
And one more thing. I can pretty much promise you that ten years from now you will look back on this time and realize how much you had going for you, how much energy you had, and how much you were able to do. So don’t waste it, and as a result give yourself more anxiety about what you’re missing out on today.
I'm seeing this everywhere with young adults. THANK YOU for writing about it! We need the alarm bells.
Unfortunately this may be partly due to the way these brains developed during their 'hyper-plastic' stage. Windows of neuro-development are age-opportunistic and primed for learning about social engagement between the ages of about 10 - 14.
We don't get a re-do with them and so these brains will have to be taught to feel safe and engage with others but are very unlikely to have the innate, natural ability that brains who didn't engage similarly with technology have.
This may sound very negative but it's just the way brains develop - we can't argue against it because it's uncomfortable to address.
And unfortunately there’s a whole cohort of kids who were in that critical window during the COVID lockdowns and missed out on normal human interaction during that time.
"Windows of neuro-development are age-opportunistic and primed for learning about social engagement between the ages of about 10 - 14." Agreed. I believe this applies to people who missed out on other (earlier) social stages as well, often with more severe consequences. Not to mention those that may be genetically or otherwise biologically predisposed or otherwise constrained independent of environment.
Therefore, Freya's blanket advice "the only thing scarier than the real world is never being brave enough to enter it" is simply not accurate, except in aggregate. I found out the hard way numerous times, despite receiving both broadcast and personal attempts coaxing bravery, just how severe the consequences of social engagement can be.
There are many nuances to this situation @Anti-Hip and we’re living with many of the nuanced consequences of a society immersed in technology.
Sadly the offline world also supports that fear of taking part. You go to a supermarket and in many cases the traditional check-out where you have a human scanning your products is non-existent. Bank branches are closing down so the only customer service is online via chat robots or automated telephone conversation with another AI-run system. How do we stop this?
There are those who say that the desire to transition, especially for young teen girls ("clusters" also correlated with social media) is often about fear of becoming a woman. I would associate that with the same kind of intimidating influences, positive (you need to look like this) and negative (bad or harmful eperiences). These things have always existed, but I don't know why social media seems to enforce and magnify group conformity. My guess would be that it abstracts people more, the fullness of human experience and what a human being is, is not there
I would argue that the removal of the requirement of being physically present for relationships is contributing to the ignorance of biology.
Interesting idea!
PS first thought, what does OnlyFans, etc contribute to that? I'm thinking also how that affects grols' thinking about what it means to become a woman
*girls
Agree. We’ve been scaring the crap out of kids for a while. They don’t want to grow up. Best we can do is ease them into it and be there when they fail.
I recently came across this depressing subreddit called r/livingalone
https://www.reddit.com/r/LivingAlone/
It's exactly what it sounds like: a subreddit dedicated to people living alone. One of the most illuminating things about reddit is seeing how people can form an identity around *anything*. Most posts there are positive in tone, extolling the virtues of social atomization and "peaceful" living, but I can't help but interpret them all as cries for help. I don't know what to do, what lever needs to be pulled, but humans aren't supposed to live this way.
Thank you for this! What a smart and caring piece. Certainly helpful to me in seeing and trying to understand gen Z.
Autism is everywhere too. Out of 9 old school friends, three of us have kids with autism. All boys. None of us have autism ourselves. And when I say they have autism, I mean they need to use Makaton to communicate, they have these intense verbal stimming moments, they often space out and struggle or can't answer questions etc. Could some of these teens have a combination of autism and social anxiety from modern influences?
Hi Lara, Jon and Zach have indeed catalogued the rise in psychiatric disorders since 2010. The findings do indicate a rise in autism, ADHD, eating disorders, self-harm, etc., specifically a larger rise in developmental disorders for boys (ASD and ADHD) while girls are more prone to eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and self-harm.
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-021-03235-w
While there certainly could be some development of autism from excessive early social media usage, there are certainly other factors that can be responsible. A big one for autism is diet as there is a strong link between gastrointestinal issues and autism, specifically in regards to the composition of microbes that colonize the gut. It's definitely a newer scientific discovery, but I do believe it's the strongest contributor to the rise of autism.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9355470/
ADHD on the hand I'm more inclined to lay at the feet of social media, with the constant consumption of short-form content on platforms like TikTok being reasonable explanations for the decreasing attention spans. Additionally if you ever look at some of the influencers whose content that Gen Z and Gen Alpha consume (people like IShowSpeed or xQc), they make a strong case for ADHD being contagious.
ADHD is not from social media. I went undiagnosed until I was 41. They were not looking for it in women or girls. ADHD develops in early childhood. My brother has it. My dad definitely had it. Never got diagnosed.
I agree social media does not HELP anything, but it’s already difficult enough to get diagnosed and treated for ADHD.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I certainly did not mean for it to come across that I think that ADHD is borne purely though social media usage. You are totally correct that ADHD has traditionally been underdiagnosed for girls and adults. However, I am not wont to exculpate the phone-based childhood from playing a role, specifically in regards to the rise of ADHD diagnoses that I was referring to, especially amongst children and adolescents. There's a growing body of information that excessive screen usage early in childhood impedes brain development.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2754101
Children also extensively prone to imitation (not to say adults don't imitate) and I think there is something to be said specifically about kids consuming hours upon hours of content from influencers that is marred with impulsive, capricious, and irascible behavior. This is the other point I wanted to get across in terms of social media being a contributing factor to a more restless and certainly more inattentive youth.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/primary-children-teachers-pandemic-attention-span-b2352945.html
Of course I do not want to conflate raw inattention with ADHD, but I am hesitant to wave away the rise in ADHD and its symptoms as solely being the product of parity in diagnoses or instances of Munchausen syndrome, especially in regards to the increase of early diagnoses.
Thank you for relying on actual science and not perpetuating anti-vaccine nonsense.
Vax Injured.
Thanks for the great article. I agree what you're describing is a new and serious problem. I didn't like to talk on the phone as a teenager, but I'm old enough that I didn't really have a choice - there wasn't any other way to communicate over long distances (other than letters, I guess). it's very unfortunate that the communication methods we have now are a) more impersonal and b) profitable to major corporations that have every incentive to prevent people from communicating in more traditional ways. I don't know how to fix this problem aside from eliminating the technological "conveniences" from your life. Kudos to those like Freya who have started to do this!
> Many young people even fear making phone calls, and avoid it as much as possible.
To be fair, I try to avoid phone calls as much as possible too, especially of the business variety (customer service, etc.) Not out of fear or anxiety, but simply because so many of them tend to be obnoxious and could be done so much more easily and quickly on a website.
I spent the first half of my adult life essentially devoting all my time and energy to getting money together for the sole purpose of going to see live music: concerts in my town, concerts two hours away, concerts 24 hours’ drive away (drove to Denver a couple times to see shows, from Alabama!). It wasn’t exactly the smartest career move to make but God was it thrilling. And lots of friends to see and make along the way. I don’t regret it even a tiny bit. And you don’t have to be some social butterfly; you just have to care about the music and talk about it with others.
Do people in their 20s still do this very much? I’d be sad to hear that this died out or declined severely, but I do feel like I see zoomers at shows. I’m not some kind of expert at determining someone’s age by looking at them, though, so who knows. All I know is music will give you happiness and joy if you let it, and the surest way to experience that is at an actual concert. So I hope the zoomers and their even younger cousins (whatever we’re calling them) aren’t missing out on this lovely perk of being alive.
I think music is just as big for the youth as any other generation, but how they consume it has slightly changed. The rise of online concerts has also changed some music is consumed, especially given the multi-media nature. Take for instance the online concerts held in Minecraft or Fortnite.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/100-gecs-minecraft-music-festival-square-garden-tree-of-clues/
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/23/21233637/travis-scott-fortnite-concert-astronomical-live-report
I don't think it's a big leap to say that these attendees skew heavily towards being zoomers. Not to mention TikTok, regardless of what you think of it, came from musical.ly an app designed around incorporating music into social media. So I definitely think that there still is a hunger for music from Gen Z. Of course, that still doesn't account for taste...
Every personality type and every subculture has a public outlet now. Some will thrive and some will suffer depending on the surrounding environment and social context. For many scenarios a person might encounter in life, you will have people who like it and people who hate it (and a lot of indifference). As our relationships mediated through technology shift in form and substance, different types of people will respond positively or negatively.
People with a propensity for social anxiety, millions of them, now have a venue for complaining about that experience and bonding with like-minded sufferers. The flip side is that the people who are hip and cool and outgoing and adventurous now get to document their exploits online and become "influencers", some even making a living off of monetizing other people's fascination with their lifestyles.
Point is, there's always been shy kids, and social butterflies. Now we can see a full cross section of humanity categorized by hashtag, and how they react differently to the same situations. You don't learn much just by pointing to examples of some people having a bad time, when you could equally scan the frequency band for other folks having a blast.
Actually, you can learn a lot about how things are going in the world by pointing to examples of MILLIONS of people having a bad time.