Old drugs are also at least sometimes social. Even heroin gives rise to cliques of users. It’s deeply unhealthy and self destructive but at least there is connection. Sometimes you get art out of it too. A whole era of great music has many bittersweet odes to smack.
I particularly worry about men. The greater cultural and possibly (more controversial) biological susceptibility to isolation coupled with this stuff means a generation of young men who are isolated, hopeless, poor, lonely, and sexless.
Then we have a culture that, depending on which side you listen to, either shames them as potential rapists from the patriarchy or simply “losers.” (IMHO the “woke” shaming is just code for loser, as I have heard said in private.) They are neither. They are victims of exploitation, of a nearly exact analog to the Matrix that is destroying their minds.
I speak mostly of social media and addiction optimized gaming, not all tech. The problem is the apps not the phone. Really anything that works very hard to “maximize engagement” should be considered guilty unless proven innocent. This phrase is code for addiction.
As we have seen the gurus that appeal to such men are the likes of Andrew Tate. As awful as he is Jordan Peterson is actually among the less toxic of the crew since he does occasionally say something good.
In the future we could have gurus for hordes of lonely poor men that make Tate look helpful and wise. This is how we either LARP the Handmaid’s Tale or — worse — ISIS or the Khmer Rouge.
I have two daughters and I fear for their safety in a country full of fascism radicalized angry emotionally stunted men who have been told they are losers and then handed pitchforks.
Our industry is the industry making the opium to which these youth are addicted and that is destroying them. We are destroying the minds of a generation every time any B2C app tries to optimize its time on app KPI.
Mothers and fathers of boys: raise your sons or Andrew Tate will.