This is totally unprecedented. It is likely that the addictive quality of smartphones and social media are the cause. They are replacing physical contacts with virtual ones. There is a serious argument to be made to outright ban teenagers from owning smartphones until the age of 16, similar to laws on smoking and alcohol.
COVID, Climate Change, War, reduced job prospects. Social media and smartphones certainly don't help but they're a side show compared to the rest.
There is a serious argument to be made outright ban smartphones not just for teenagers but for everybody that can't handle having a non-stop distraction device in their pocket. But that argument will fail because we tend to allow people to do stupid stuff as long as it doesn't affect others.
Having grown up one generation previous, in the era of Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” etc. there used to be a real sense of hope and optimism that we would collectively be able to put the work in to solve the issue before it became untenable. A generation later this optimism is much less common because the evidence has mounted that we are not capable of making the changes necessary.
https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/teen-d...
This is totally unprecedented. It is likely that the addictive quality of smartphones and social media are the cause. They are replacing physical contacts with virtual ones. There is a serious argument to be made to outright ban teenagers from owning smartphones until the age of 16, similar to laws on smoking and alcohol.