TV, newspapers, and the internet are drowning in words explaining the evils of social media. It's everywhere.
I heard an interview with Sarah Wynn-Williams, an ex-Meta employee promoting her "tell-all" book, Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work. I've not read it and probably won't. The thrust seems to be that Meta is evil and evil on purpose. You don't say?
Of course, many books have been written on the dangers of social media, and some of them have been successful—but none seems to have made a dent in social media's grinding advance. More than once, from many sources, I have heard people categorically state that Meta Directors do not allow their children to be on social media.
A group of parents from the UK are suing TikTok, arguing that their children, who had died, were trying to complete some dangerous challenge popularised on the platform.
Just yesterday, I watched "Adolescence," a Netflix mini-series exploring the fictional murder of one child by another. People are raving about it, but I found it excruciating—not because of the subject matter but because of the presentation. Each hour-long episode is shot in one take. There are some incredible skills in that, which I admire, but the net effect for me was that I found the episodes boring.
Mrs L scolded me, explaining that the show was not intended to entertain. It was intended to educate. To show me the horrors that exist out there for young people. The world is going to hell in a handbasket, apparently. "They need to do something about it."
Perhaps she's right. They do.
Who are "they"?
Us, of course.
Perhaps we overlook the fact that social media is dead the very instant that we decide it is. No users, no advertising revenue. No advertising revenue, no platform. The harm to children, real or perceived, is collateral damage. If the grown-ups took their wallets elsewhere, the platforms would fold.
We are at a place where social media platforms can win elections. Where anyone (with money) can influence national elections.
Only because we let them.
I have no problem at all with social media. I don't use it.
Take a month off all your social media accounts. Go on. Try it.
You'll never look back.
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