I hear what y’all are saying, but I think its a cop out. The changes in parenting came along a long time before social media existed and its what I think is accountable for the societal ills that concern us all. My own upbringing is a prime example. Next year I turn 70, and my sibs turn 62, 60, and 50. So its almost like the four of us were raised by different generations of parents given how we were raised. I was raised in the country with chores/jobs that kept me busy when I wasn’t involved in football, baseball, band, drinking with my buddies on a country road, etc. I had my first paying job at 14, working at night cleaning up a garment factory in town. When my middle brother and sister came along, my parents were in full blown career mode, running their businesses so those two ended up watching a lot of TV in the back while my parents worked. My youngest brother is 20 years younger than me and was essentially raised by my sister and brother.
All of this isn’t a complaint, but we did grow up radically different. I left home at 17 and never lived at home again or have even lived close to home. My sibs all built houses on the family farm. When they were needed by my sibs my folks helicoptered in a dealt with whatever it was. And don’t get me wrong, my sibs grew up happy, but they didn’t get near the first hand (emphasis on hand) direction I did.
Practically all of my friends raised their kids like I did, with both parents working and doing all they could to raise families, work a shit ton of hours to ‘make it’ in our careers, and manage to stay nominally sane. Our kids came home from school to an empty house every day.
In my ‘senior’ years I feel like I’ve learned some things. One is that my generation’s values were totally fucked up. So I blame helicopter parenting, upside down values, and our country’s social values that esteems business success over personal success as a human.
Its the root cause of our environmental issues as well as our societal ones. Before we ever fix any of it, we’re going to have to take The Economy’ down a rung or two and redefine what we call success as a person.
I know that doesn’t play well in today’s politics, but to the point under discussion I believe social media is a symptom, not the problem.

BKB