General Discussion

And seeing my brother and SIL struggle to balance letting them do what all of their friends are doing while still trying to keep a strict enough eye on things to be aware. It was proving impossible for them.

When you're sitting at a dinner table watching your brother and his wife watch their daughter, because they need to make sure she's eating, because she spends all day looking at Instagram models and influencers, it's quietly heartbreaking.

When I grew up in the 90s, we were already having a conversation about what impossible standards in media and magazines were doing to young girls' self-image and self-esteem.

Now we just let them stream that heavily-filtered mess directly into their eyeballs 24/7, and it's like "Their mental health got worse? How did that happen?!"

Now mix in that people can bully online with anonymous impunity.

I am so glad I was grown adult by the time social media kicked in. I can dip in and dip out at will, and it has no effect whatsoever on my family, social, or professional life. There is no Twitter history from when I was a teenager that's going to get me fired from a future job.

We used to joke growing up about how various benign infractions would go "on your permanent record."

Welp, now kids actually have one online. That's a terrifying thought to me.