Honestly, it's probably the phones

Yglesias argues that the progressive politics of the 2010s encouraged progressives to think of everything in catastrophic terms, making them less happy. In essence, he sees teenagers as having been prodded by political and media figures into adopting the same kind of doomer worldview espoused by people like Taylor Lorenz.

As the natural experiment of the pandemic demonstrated, physical interaction is important. Text is a highly attenuated medium — it’s slow and cumbersome, and an ocean of nuance and tone and emotion is lost. Even video chat is a highly incomplete substitute for physical interaction. A phone doesn’t allow you to experience the nearby physical presen

Another adaptation is probably to take social media less seriously. Twitter isn’t a field of combat where heroes decide the fates of nations — it’s just a silly room where people scream at each other and tell a bunch of lies. You don’t have to look fabulous on Instagram or go viral on TikTok to be cool and have friends. Perhaps Zoomers will realiz

Of course, smartphones, by themselves, don’t force you to stop hanging out in person. But there are several reasons they reduce it. First, they’re a distraction — the rise of smartphones was also the rise of “ phubbing ”, i.e. when people go on their phones instead of paying attention to the people around them. Second, phones provide a behavioral