Another factor not mentioned: 24/7 news and the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine. Honestly, in my work with kids I'm not seeing social media as being a big

Another factor not mentioned: 24/7 news and the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine. Honestly, in my work with kids I'm not seeing social media as being a big problem. Mass media has existed for well over 100 years. Kids have always known kids who were exceptional. The difference now is kids are much more aware of the news and thanks to the hyper-partisan news reporting they're being continually bombarded with Bad News. Not bad news as in airplane crashes and stuff like that, but bad news with a political spin: the economy is crashing, AI is going to take all our jobs, the left wants Big Government to take away all your rights, the right wants to create a Christian theocracy - the list goes on, and on, and on, and on. If anything, kids' social media, i.e. where kids actually hang out, gets them away from all that crap. That's why kids love TikTok. They watch videos of kids doing cool and interesting things. No politics.