I’ve been feeling nostalgic recently.

I think I’ve been feeling uneasy with the world. There’s so much going on that I won’t even try to get into right now, I just want to slip into a time where I wasn’t so tuned into the bad things happening all around. I mean I doubt the world was truly that much better when I was a kid in the 2010s, but it certainly felt like it.

This week I was finishing off Johann Hari’s book, Stolen Focus. In the last chapter, he talks about how kids nowadays are confined. Most have parents who don’t trust them to play outside alone, or they’d rather just sit on their iPad and watch Cocomelon. He used an interesting statistic that by the year 2003, only 10% of children played outside regularly. That had me thinking back on my childhood (I was born in 2005) and that definitely wasn’t it. At least not the early part of it.

See, I grew up in a safe little suburban town in the middle of Pennsylvania farm country. We had a nice backyard where I’d spend my days playing on our swingset or turning the leaves of my mom’s plants into “salads.” I was also lucky to have three other siblings to keep me entertained, or in the case of my brothers, keep me humble. 

I think that time outside really did make an impact on me. My parents trusted us to go out on our own, get our cuts and scrapes, get dirty. This isn’t something kids today have the luxury of. When I was little we’d just bike to each other’s houses to play. Now, I barely see any kids out and about in my hometown. My unsupervised outdoor play taught me the problem solving, interpersonal skills and independence that I so proudly tout in resumes now. What are today’s children going to learn staring at that screen?

Let me get off my high horse momentarily, I did get my first iPod on my 9th birthday.

But, call it confirmation bias, I do think my life went downhill from there. I sometimes find myself upset with my parents for giving me internet access at that age. I saw and read some things I definitely shouldn’t have and being a dumb kid, sometimes just regurgitated what I saw online. It led to some embarrassing memories I still have to cope with. And looking back, I think that was kind of the time I stopped going outside. 

Suddenly, come middle school, I’m getting diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Around that time in 2015, 7.3% of teens were diagnosed with depression. In 2005, only 6.6% were. In 2020, that number jumped to 9.2%. It’s only getting worse.

If it is the tech causing the issue, it’s even more prevalent now.

Kids ages 8-18 spend an average 7.5 hours on screens per day. Their school, their social life, their entertainment, it’s all on a screen. They spend no time outside or even really speaking face to face with anyone.

I really am worried about this next generation. Some of the stuff that makes it to children’s algorithms is horrifying. I’ve been keeping up with this guy on Instagram, @showtoolsai, who’s been tricking the Youtube algorithm to think he’s a kid. The Youtube Shorts he’s getting… horrifying. (This is his video about the first day, I think this is super important for everyone to be aware of)

What’s really interesting about his work is, it’s not directed toward parents, though it’s great that it may be informing parenting decisions too. He said his videos were to hold Youtube accountable for allowing this to happen. That’s what we need to do, not make these individual parents feel bad. We need to stand up to the system that’s letting this happen to our children.

Oh, and sorry if you were looking for something journalism related here. I know that’s kinda what this blog is about, but I couldn’t find a way to tie it in. I still think this is a really important topic on its own.