Viral Eyeball Minutes, Mental Contagions, and the Young

May be an image of 4 people, child, people sitting, people standing and outdoors

Here’s a disturbing tidbit: tweens (8-12 years old) are on their cell phones for an average of five and a half hours per day; teens (13-18 years old) average eight and a half hours (The Common Sense Census, see below). In addition, as of 2019, half of adolescents and tweens owned a cell phone, and 84% of teens owned one. I suspect that it’s only gotten worse. Why “disturbed” and “worse”? Think of the behavioral and mental contagions unleashed by these “pocket computers”.

The mania can be measured in “eyeball minutes” by Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. For them, they are the equivalent of the oilwell gushers of old. Much that they do is geared to maximizing the fixation of the eyes, particularly of the young.

Now, we have a new meaning for “viral”. What used to be applied to contagious diseases has greater relevance for today’s addiction for that eyeball-and-thumb rummaging through websites and pictures. It’s easy to alter mental states as never before. The emotional enslavement to the device was properly characterized by Bill Maher when he said on 60 Minutes,

“The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd-gods building a better world, and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in t-shirts selling an addictive product to children.”

Think of the emotional conditions that are sparked by the incessant activity on the thing. Anorexia nervosa, gender dysphoria, experiments in alternate sexual orientations, teen jealousies, distorted expectations, new and toxic behavioral norms, flash mobs, are just some examples of mental and behavioral contagions that a tween or teen can potentially experience through their incessant connectivity.

No wonder that a good chunk of today’s under-30’s are moonbat crazy.

RogerG

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