Gen Z were the guinea pigs in this uncontrolled global social experiment. We were the first to have our vulnerabilities and insecurities fed into a machine that magnified and refracted them back at us, all the time, before we had any sense of who we were. We didn’t just grow up with algorithms. They raised us. They rearranged our faces. Shaped our identities. Convinced us we were sick.
So what chance does the next generation stand? Algorithms were introduced to my generation gradually, in the 2010s. The next cohort of kids, Generation Alpha (born after 2010), is coming online in the 2020s, a time when everything is already at the extreme—beauty standards, dating discourse, therapy culture, political polarization. Every aspect of their lives—from how they look to how they feel to what they believe—will be guided by algorithms from the very start.
Parents of Gen Alpha must take this seriously. I speak to many parents about social media; they worry that their kids will talk to predators or be exposed to explicit self-harm and suicidal content — which are, of course, real risks. But there is also something more pernicious, and more destabilizing happening. Something we have to get ahead of. Because maybe it seems like your child is simply watching some makeup tutorials, following some mental health influencers, or experimenting with their identity. But let me tell you: they are on a conveyor belt to someplace bad. Whatever insecurity or vulnerability they are struggling with, they will be pushed further and further into it.
What I would say to the parents of Gen Alpha is: don’t let your children open accounts on social media platforms when they are still in early puberty. Delay their entry until at least 16. Prioritize their in-person interactions, and encourage them to discover who they are from real-world experiences, not manipulative algorithms.
And what I would say to Gen Alpha is simple: get off your screens. Delete the apps. What these continuous streams of content do is prevent you from taking a second to pause, reflect on who you really are, and realize where you are headed.
Because you aren’t ugly. You are probably not sick. And if you are, let a doctor tell you that, not an influencer chosen by an algorithm. Just look at us, in the generation ahead of you. There are a lot of us now in our 20s who feel utterly lost. Detached from who we really are. . . The conveyor belt runs day and night. Let’s do what we can to help Gen Alpha step off—or avoid stepping on in the first place.
Freya India, writing at Jon Haidt’s After Babel Substack, “Algorithms Hijacked My Generation“
New technologies cause disruption. They amplify the best and the worst of human nature. They require time for the adaptation of behavior, the accrual of wisdom regarding best use, and the learned discipline that accompanies best use, i.e. boundary setting, desired ends, healthy outcomes, etc.
As an older Millennial (or one of the youngest Gen Xers, depending on where you draw the line), I’ve been subject to the problems and distortions brought about by the internet age. I became an active user of the internet in late Web 1.0, remaining online through Web 2.0, and now bracing for what is ahead with Web 3.0. I have not passed through these transitions unscathed, and the irony of calling myself an internet “user” has not escaped me. Some hope the future of the web will look more like its past, with a return of micro-communities as majorities abandon social media platforms. I also have fond memories of the blogging days.
My assessment is that the future of the internet will have continuity and discontinuity with its past, offering an engine of mass distraction for vast majorities of the populace, while simultaneously creating space for micro-niches of generativity, creativity, and connection, yielding both good and bad. We’ll fix some problems. We’ll create others. We’ll learn some lessons. We’ll unlearn others. The human fabric is always fraying and being mended. The sages among us will share their wisdom, and those with ears to hear will be wise to listen and put what has been learned into practice. Furthermore, they will do well to pass those lessons down another generation.
That’s where Ms. India’s essay comes in, featured by Jon Haidt at his After Babel Substack newsletter. She’s paying attention. She’s seeing what social media services, at their worst, produce. She’s sounding the alarm. If social media engines were housed in a factory somewhere vulnerable to a good smashing, the next step would be obvious.
I suspect frying all the servers would be just as fruitless as the actions of those Luddites of old. The hydra would continue sprouting heads. Social media, in some form, will persist.
Habits of resistance, then, must be cultivated. Ms. India’s essay helps by exposing us to social media’s most pernicious effects. She offers a warning and directs us toward safe passage.
In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Odysseus desires to hear the song of the sirens. Their song was beautiful and irresistible to those who heard it. But hearing their song led to destruction. In order to hear it and survive, Odysseus orders his men to tie him tightly to the mast, to restrain him as their ship sailed by these creatures. The crew was to plug their ears with beeswax. They were not permitted to hear it themselves. Odysseus, however, would receive their song freely and fully. The crew was to keep him secured tightly no matter his degree of begging, pleading, madness, or protestation. Odysseus survives their song. His crew passes to safety. Some writing after Homer claimed the sirens were fated to die if any heard their song and lived. Odysseus, then, could add the sirens to his list of those he vanquished.
Perhaps Ms. India is a modern Odysseus. Maybe her work will not only spare her crew. Maybe monsters will be slain, freeing countless others from the suffering that might have been.
When I speak with my children about the power of social media, they have difficulty imaging its destructive effects. I am very aware that my influence is countered by that of their peers, who outnumber me by far, and who are part of relational networks that make different choices than those I advocate for. I’ve been pressured to make compromises, to reason with my children as best as I’m able, to permit them to make their own discoveries (and mistakes), to remain in dialogue with them about which choices might be better, more life giving, more wise. I constantly encourage them to look for something better than what the world places before their eyes, to not only look at things seen, but to things unseen, even things to come.
As human beings, we fix our gaze on something. We look to our community, culture, and traditions for identity and meaning. We look for models. At present, we look into the portals opened by our phones. We’re fed and we’re led. We’re captivated, carried away. More often than not, we know not where we are being carried, only to arrive and wonder how we ended up in such a strange place, with such a strange way of being, if we wonder at all.
We’re made to gaze on something better, something divine. As a Christian person, I believe we are made to gaze upon God, the God in whose image we are made and who remakes us into that image through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. But to be remade, we must behold. We must look to the Lord, our Maker.
But if we are to behold, we have to break our gaze from elsewhere, whether it be social media or ourselves. Temptations are pervasive. Distractions are innumerable. The spells cast by social media algorithms are seductively powerful. They must be resisted. They must be named. They must be rebuked.
One step in that direction is to expose social media algorithms as the siren-sounding lie machines they are, made not to connect or educate or help or mobilize or empower us, but to engage, consume, and devour us, until we are completely and totally possessed.