What the internet has done to our young children is criminal. By design, as well. You don't send children out to the Wild, Wild, West.

Social media is an indirect form of communication, so children are not developing social skills.

Social media increases the risk of cyberbullying and imposter syndrome. Pretending to be someone else to shift the blame.

Social media is shortening children’s attention spans.

Social Media is destroying children's ability to 'Imagine!'

~NightSky

~~~~~

By Michael Snyder

Our society is more addicted to the Internet than ever. So how has that affected us? Are we happier than we once were, or are we less happy? Are we more mentally healthy than we once were, or are we less mentally healthy? I don’t have to give you the answers to those questions, because you already know. Our society has gone completely nuts, and our suicide rate has soared. In particular, we are seeing historically high levels of suicide and depression among our young people. We have a major national crisis on our hands, but hardly anyone is talking about it.

We were not designed to endlessly stare at our screens.

Life is supposed to be about so much more than that.

Yes, the Internet can be used to do really good things. Personally, I use it to share the truth with large numbers of people all over the globe. But the Internet also brings out the very worst in humanity.

At this stage, the Internet is absolutely teeming with just about every sort of evil that you can possibly imagine, and most of us are spending an enormous amount of time wading around in that cesspool. In fact, a recent survey discovered that Americans with a home Internet subscription “spend nearly half their day online”…

Wired Americans spend nearly half their day online — splitting that time almost evenly between watching videos or TV shows and working, browsing and shopping, according to a new survey.

“This new survey was eye-opening,” said Eric Bruno, senior vice president of product management for Optimum, whose telecommunications firm interviewed 2,000 US residents who have a home Internet subscription with any company for the poll.

Many of us would simply not be able to function if the Internet suddenly went away.

Thanks to our phones, we take it with us everywhere that we go, and when we are at home we use it in a multitude of different ways…

They spend 5.4 of those hours browsing, working, gaming, looking at social media, reading email or paying bills, the survey found.

They spend another five hours streaming video or TV content.

I am not saying that the Internet is bad.

Ultimately, it is just another tool.

The problem comes when we get addicted, and young people are particularly susceptible.

One study that was just released discovered that the younger a girl is when she gets her first smartphone, the more likely she is to have suicidal thoughts when she gets older…

Nearly half of young women who received their first smartphone at age 5 or 6 now report having suicidal thoughts, compared to just over a quarter of those who waited until 13 to get their device. A sweeping new study tracking more than 100,000 young adults across the globe reveals a troubling pattern that should alarm every parent: the younger children are when they first own a smartphone, the worse their mental health becomes by early adulthood.

Kids in the United States are committing suicide in unprecedented numbers.

According to the CDC, in 2023 suicide “was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-34”.

Reading that should absolutely horrify you.

Personally, it is my opinion that parents should delay giving smartphones to their children for as long as possible.

In addition to being more likely to have suicidal thoughts, those that get smartphones at an early age are also more likely to develop a whole host of other emotional problems…

Early smartphone ownership correlates with a troubling range of symptoms in young adulthood beyond suicidal thoughts. Those who got phones before age 13 show higher rates of aggression, feelings of detachment from reality, and hallucinations. Among specific mental health functions, early smartphone users struggle more with self-image, self-worth, emotional control, and resilience – particularly females. Males show greater difficulties with stability, calmness, and empathy.

Other studies have come up with similar results.

Here is another example…

A new study provides answers. Researchers at UC San Francisco found that as preteens used more social media, their depressive symptoms increased. Yet the reverse wasn’t true — a rise in depressive symptoms didn’t predict a later increase in social media use.

On average, kids’ social media use rose from seven to 73 minutes per day over the three years of the study and their depressive symptoms went up 35%. The study, which was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was published in JAMA Network Open.

The research team, led by Jason Nagata, MD, MSc, associate professor in UCSF’s Department of Pediatrics, examined data following nearly 12,000 kids aged 9 to 10 years and then three years later at 12 to 13. The study is among the first to use within-person longitudinal data, meaning researchers could track changes over time in each child to accurately assess the link between social media and depression.

If you endlessly put garbage into your mind, you are going to get garbage out.

Of course if everyone was using the Internet to read the Bible and to focus on things that are true, things that are honest, things that are just, and things that are pure, we wouldn’t have a problem.

But that isn’t how most Americans use the Internet.

Most Americans spend countless hours consuming content that is overtly evil.

As a result, our society has become lawless. Let me share yet another example of this with you…

In the shocking clip, a man in a white t-shirt is can be seen being shoved to ground by two men and repeatedly beaten as other members of the crowd jeer and join in.

The gang beat the man for nearly a minute as he lay in the middle of the street, seemingly stepping on his head multiple times.

When the barrage of attacks temporarily stopped, he is seen attempting to stand – but immediately fell over in apparent disorientation. One attacker yelled out ‘my man’s drunk’.

People are talking about this case all over the Internet.

At one point a woman rushed to help the man that had been beaten, and she was viciously attacked too…

A woman in a black dress rushed to his aid, but was attacked by the crowd, suffering two blows to the face.

The impact caused her to fall, with her head slamming the pavement. She became unconscious as blood spewed from her mouth.

This is our society now.

Whether you like it or not, we have raised an entire generation that has embraced lawlessness.

If we had raised them differently, we would have gotten different results.

Sadly, we still have not learned our lesson.

Most of us continue to run after things we should not be running after, and that is a recipe for societal disaster.