A week ago I was driving to work in the early morning and Bill Bennett had on a psychiatrist, a wise Dr. Keith. Keith complained rightly that kids today are hostage to what he referred to as the obligation to save face and keep pace with peer expectations on Facebook and Twitter. He warned that children are no longer allowed to be themselves, but are expected to serve as entertainers for a ruthless, fickle audience of other adolescents to earn their popularity. If the peers rejected the entertainer, the offering entertainers were devastated.
I was horrified but not surprised. Electronic groupism now rears its ugly head, as young people cling to herd expectations when they should be self-realizing listening primarily if not totally only to their own inner voice--at least when they choose courses of action. We have come so far, and still react to tainted peer pressure like teens did in prehistory 6,000 years ago.
Keith then went on to not that addiction to this unhealthy electronic infatuation is an addiction that needs to be condemned as such like being addicted to pot. First it was be condemned as not normal or healthy, and then the entertainer an audience, can admit their addiction, and then get off of it. A wise man. Great points.
Just as we need to learn how to cope in a world of smart robots, so do our young people require dire, immediate help from adults to have the right set of values and judgments to cope successfully with social media.
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