TEND TO THE CHILDREN
It’s not rocket science, but sometimes it seems that common sense got lost along the way.
Kids who got i-phones when they first came out in 2010 are now 23. Age contracts legally “met” by the corporations. But did we really just hand our 13 year old children over to GOOGLE, APPLE and FACEBOOK, like that, back in 2010?
When I found social media, it was out of pandemic boredom. Trump said “stay away from TikTok; the Chinese are after you!” so of course, that’s where I began posting and “scrolling”.
Do our Millennials, Gen-X and Gen-Zs really use their screens for up to 40 hours a week? Are they really losing their “real” friendships, their physical health and their sleep over all this?
When I found TikTok, I found a community of fellow grandparent age “Wise Guys and Gals” with silly handles like my own “TikTok Granny Doc”. There was some serious Elder Wisdom sprinkled in there as well, especially at Indigenous TikTok..
But did I really see an 8 year old with a TikTok account, posting videos of her mom and her new baby sister (that that mom clearly did NOT know strangers like me were watching…)?
Goddess help our little ones, with the predators out there with their fake accounts.
I am old enough and experienced enough to know an addictive product when I see it. So I would set a timer for 20 minutes of “wild TikTok time”, and honor that limit, once a day. Exploring. Growing a network through posts recommended by friends, not steered by “For You” from the algorithms. Back in 2021, it was fun. I danced with folks halfway around the world. I pontificated from the kitchen in my rural Vermont home, and created posts on health and wellness.
But then TikTok algorithms started censoring my best, most thoughtful videos. “Sensitive topic: proceed at your own risk” was just enough of a pause to interrupt a serious scrolling experience, and didn’t happen much.
Anyone else experience a weird grey screen DELAY of about 2 seconds on some posts “appearing” as a newbie stops by your TikTok home page to see old posts? That 2 seconds is always over my most controversial posts.
But they didn’t actually censor me, did they?
Were my numbers of viewers really going down to a couple hundred a post from thousands?
Yes.
Because I was never the client for ANY social media app. The client was always the advertisers! What I was writing about, my discipline at staying focused and not being distracted by the notices (which I keep “OFF”), my failure to respond to the emails from businesses who want me to push their products through my TikTok account (happened, when I hit 10,000 “followers) all confirm that I am NOT going to make any advertisers any money.
So, here I am. With a purported 60,000 “followers” on TikTok, no longer posting there. Steering folks to less screens (especially the Gen-Z girls)
I feel the power of being the “second to last” doll, in the Matrioschka dolls… almost MATRIARCH. From The Silent Generation (1920-40s), through The Baby Boomers (post WW2 to to 1964), to Gen X (1965-1975) tumbling forwards next to The Millenials (1980 - 2000) and now Gen Z.
The Shadow work, here: the Great Generation, who took 70 years to pass suffrage bills andits ongoing oppression of Black Brown and Asian peoples/ and the Silent Generation’s “back-fire into gangster land” prohibition decisions and economic trauma of The Great Depression/ though The Baby Boomers love of alcohol and drugs, WE HAVE FAILED YOU I say to the three generations of adults now younger than me. We Baby Boomers (and some Gen-X to Millenials) have over-protected each stair-step generation forward from The Real World, and under-protected you from the Social Media demons designed to harm you.
We failed you.
As we ourselves were failed by our elders, with all of our unaddressed legacy traumas.
I charge you Gen-Zs to come on over to the grown up side. You can make the world a better place for your kids, but you have to acknowledge we messed you all up. I hope the spiritual tools of moral beauty, synchronous embodied movement, meditation, self-transcendence ( awe in Nature, epiphanies) , and spiritual resilience (with authenticity and forgiveness) will help you transform your phone-based lives.
And God/ Goddess God-US forgive us for not having done a better job.
Ideas on Social Media and Gen-Z from The Anxious Generation by Jonathon Haidt (https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book)