>>1358
>psychologists, sociologists, or what-have-you-ists will identify some sort of 'lost generation' of people who got mentally crippled by the arisal of the modern internet.
I heard a podcast a while back with a psychologist/psychoanalyst that had some interesting observations about this. IIRC their practice was mainly concerned with helping young people deal with anxiety in a modern context and they saw media and social media in particular as an underlying cause that they felt was not being addressed or taken seriously enough. They went a bit further then the usual critics go.
One point that I remember them focusing on was the idea that for many modern kids growing up with the internet they felt the very basis of the self was being undermined and that this was unprecedented. They mentioned how in years past those who were bullied and ostracized would have had to either take the abuse, learn from it, and adept or go their own way. The stereotype of the socialized normal or the antisocial artist/scholar, etc. what they focused on was that whatever path one chose or was forced down there would be, of course, a formation of self and identity that has been long taken for granted. What they noted as a stark difference in today's world was that a young antisocial, along with most normals at this point, could retreat into the internet and easily assume another virtual identity. Like, at school or home you live with your given name and are given nothing but grief by your circumstances, but online you can reinvent and roleplay under an assumed name while wearing a mask of photofilters or hiding behind a commissioned art piece as a persona. In the extreme, think of... The scrawny kid playing as a military operator who thinks they are an actual bad ass. The awkward goth lost in chuunibyou larping as a magus. The fat chick who only shows head shots, but never the body. The IRL self might be downtrodden, but the online self might be a that of a champion of whatever games played or a valued member of whatever virtual community.
They mentioned that while an adult might be able to handle such a dichotomy, it was only possible because they had already formed a self and identity, but if one was to grow up with a baby's first i-pad type situation, then the self that would have been needed to crystallize before engaging in a dual life of that nature, was being undermined from the start. There was always another person to hide out in or as and that would undermine the normal process of development that is taken for granted.
What they saw as a great disturbance in the minds of many young people was when the online sense of self would be confronted with the stark difference between it and the IRL self and that would cause some to either lash out or crumble in despair. And there, of course, are groomers of all sorts, sexual and ideological, waiting in the wings to offer false hope and further complicate the matter.
TLDR:The internet and social media in particular has the potential to not just poison the minds of children, but to prevent the very self, that we have all taken for granted, from being able to form in the first place.