The reason I think this is so is because of the fact that these two social media platforms have a really high hookability and the media pieces were very short. When we stopped talking to each other to just stare down into our phones, it seemed to me that the hyperbolic technological deterministic line of kids’ brains being trashed because of their phones had some weight to it.Ĭommonly enough, it’d always be Instagram or TikTok. There was this very odd escapism about it. I feel like in the last year of high school I was this non-participating observer of the effects of social media use in school (especially in my group of friends). Honestly, I can’t tell you why, I just felt that I couldn’t be trusted if I had something like Instagram or TikTok on my phone I would use it whenever I had the slightest whim. On IG or TikTok, the same is much easier, which is proved by the fact that a whole lot of your friends will maintain their social media presence on IG rather than YouTube. The only platforms I used were the ones with substantial barriers, or barrier SMP’s, as I like to call them, like YouTube, which basically is the type of media where it is hard for small start-up users to maintain a healthy and large channel. Growing up in the age of technology there was something really compelling to me about not joining a lot of the mainstream social media platforms.

Nyan cat lost in space blackface