Re: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness
It's such a narrow band that he's looking in to, it's both right and fundamentally wrong. He is looking down at the problem, not upwards.
I grew up in the 1990's. I didn't get a Nintendo until I was 9 years old, I didn't get a PC until I was 10 years old. I became an "adult" in the late 2000's and went in to the big bad world looking for a job just as the arse fell out of the world. I'm even older now, with a 2 year old child, in a world that continues to throw it's guts downwards and where life has been on a steady decline ever since. I too have suffered with depression and sought medication for it, to the point where on this medication I came incredibly close to ending it all in 2019. Let me tell you, every day I look at my child I think back to that day in 2019 and simultaneously thank myself for not ending, and hating myself for wanting to end it.
What caused my issues? Well I will tell you right now that it wasn't the Nintendo, it wasn't the PC, it wasn't the mobile phone I got as a 13 year old, nor access to dial up internet at the age of 14. My issues stem from the world around me, the way the world working, and how in reality the adult life I was "prepared" for as a child was nothing like what it was meant to be. The generation before my parents and I, whether you want to read this or not, believed the next generation should at a minimum have the same chances as their parents. My generation, and subsequent others, do not have that chance. We cannot walk in to any job, we cannot save a third of our pay for bills, a third for fun, and a third for housing. The playing field, while not level in generations before, was not the Everest it is now.
You come in to the adult world thinking you may at least have the same chances and opportunities as your parents. But you end up working for people who tell you that their workplace is "fast paced" but it's OK because we have a football table and a bean bag. Be happy with the pizza every month. Do not fucking dare consult a union. Be happy you have a job here. Be happy you have a medical plan that will bump you back to the NHS once they work out your cancer is too expensive to treat.
My generation involved in the timeframe here, our childhoods were fucking wonderful compared to the shit show as what adult life has turned out to be. Most of the meditations you're told to do, colouring in for example, aren't all of them really adult versions of what we wanted to do as children but told to stop because we needed to "grow up"?
Look up from these problems to see what transcends in to them. The need, not choice, of both parents having to work resulting in less time in the family unit. The need, not choice, to cut back on spending time in the family unit. The constant need to be seen to be doing the same as everyone else or to be seen as being a "good parent" which results in you throwing your phone in front of your child's face when they're going through a fairly normal tantrum - just because some old twat of a couple are looking at you staring at you thinking "will you shut that child up? I'm trying to eat".
Top to bottom, this adult life is the cause of many problems in life. Not the technology as a child.