I'm Worried About the Kids

It’s not as though I’m interacting with tweens and iPad babies often but when I do I feel a strong disconnect from them. Reflecting on my brief and sparsely happening interactions with young kids in 2024, I’ve noticed that these impressionable folks are becoming increasingly less individualistic. In a society that has normalized allowing 10 year olds to have social media, these said 10 year olds are learning about the real world through a fabricated lens demonstrated on the internet. Instead of knocking on doors, kids send Snapchats. When they hang out they scroll through social media. Although I haven’t witnessed much in person, I imagine this online space is creating pressing barriers pertaining to young kids' development of people skills. How will these tweens know how to interact in person if the majority of their social skills are being ‘taught’ through texting or by influencers who put on faux personas? 

I imagine this massive lack of individuality is due to an absence of boredom. How will children learn what it means to be creative, to think outside the box, if they are never even tasked with being bored? Do kids even play pretend anymore? 

Social media pushes consumerism and is teaching kids to value material items over potential hobbies or passions. The last three conversations I’ve had with kids under the age of 15 have all revolved around the purchasing of a Stanley Cup water bottle. Why do they all need to have one????? Has the desire to conform always been this bad for 12 year olds and am I only just now becoming old enough to see it? Or am I right and it actually is becoming rapidly more prevalent.. Although this is all hearsay and I have no actual evidence of anything, I am concerned that this new generation is being raised to care more about surface level items and external appearance rather than individual hobbies.  Being a 21 year old college student who has little to no interaction with middle schoolers on the daily, this concern is entirely avoidable for me to focus on. Yet, as a human being who cares about the leaders of tomorrow, I can’t help but feel the need to take action. I feel bad for them. What do you guys think? How can we save our babies from the scary dark web?