Screens may not effect the brain, but they’re certainly hurting.

When I was a kid we had the first video games, and played a lot, but we also went outdoors.

Made a reddit comment about going through the woods to a wild, unknown creek behind my hood and skinny dipping (present time). People called me an idiot for doing such a dangerous thing. Seriously.

Got beat for many similar comments. Dude finds an organic looking, white, waxy ball on the beach and pics it up to take a pic. 1,000 comments about what an idiot he was for touching an unknown thing. “Big deal?” Now I’m the idiot.

I noticed a lot of that on reddit. The risk avoidance and risk calculation of younger folks is appallingly bad, especially for a group that has historically underestimated risk.

I think all this screen time has broken people away from the world outside their door. The constant internet feeds are telling them 1,000 ways to die. They’re scared of the most mundane things.

The social anxiety memes were rampant. It’s like kids are terrified of speaking to one another or being seen by peers doing anything. There was a great post, with great conversation on this topic. Well worth the read.

Not one, but two college professors said their students refused to flip the light switch before he came in the room. In both cases they would sit in the dark because no one was bold enough to take action. WTF? And there were dozens of like stories.

Some of that is obviously up to COVID and missing a formative year or two of school. But I’d call social media “screen time”, and its scared kids into being as “plain” as possible so no one posts about them.

Disjointed rant, but I hope y’all get the gist.