Terrific piece and in many ways I'm nodding along. As a 50yo with 2 teenage kids there's lots here that resonates. On the other: "Television, The Drug of the N

Terrific piece and in many ways I'm nodding along. As a 50yo with 2 teenage kids there's lots here that resonates. On the other: "Television, The Drug of the Nation" was released in 1991 - there's always been much angst about the impact of media to dehumanise. Not to say we're not in unprecedented times, but still - humans do largely find a way to be human. One of the intense ironies that strikes me often is that if you look up from the web and spend time "out here" in the world, you realise that people genuinely aren't what they are online. Or - at least - this is my experience, albeit from a backwater Cornish town. People love each other, get hurt, aren't (generally) dicks, spend time being nice, read (some) books. The problems exist, sure - but they're vastly amplified if all you do is spend time with your face in a screen. I'm often worried about my teens and I nag them accordingly - they do spend too long online and they have sucked on the crack pipes of many of these platforms. But they also - and I give them vast credit for this - have beautiful and meaningful relationships in the real world. They talk and walk and exercise and cry and drink and make mistakes and do great things and make me proud. The difficulty of life is to be embraced, not rejected. But: I suspect it's not quite as dark as the writer suggests. Humans endure. He is right though - we've all got to keep fighting for it, fighting for the reality of life and the hard knocks that it sometimes brings.