Kids these days

At some point, every generation goes through a “kids these days” phase. And each generation is convinced that this time the degradation of our youth is real. Moral panic is built into the adult psyche.

When adults think back to their childhood, they don’t remember being little terrors. They project their own adult sensibilities back onto their childhood selves. If they work with books now, they remember themselves being voracious readers as a kid. If they’re successful in business they remember themselves being a natural leader.

Kids, on the other hand, do weird, incomprehensible things that confuse adults. Those adults don’t remember collecting Garbage Pail Kids cards, or the Pog craze.

The story adults these days tell is how screen time is destroying children’s brains. But according to science, screen time is actually not that harmful as long as kids are leading normal lives outside that screen time and making friends. It’s only really harmful when all you do is watch the screen.

We’ve had moral panics about video games, television, rock music, books, and even writing itself. I’m sure when kids started chipping stone to make tools, someone was complaining that kids are too lazy to smash things with a flat rock.