They want approximately what everyone wants at that age: meaningful experiences, meaningful work, somewhere affordable and safe to live, a functioning future, etc. Where they differ is in their confidence that they'll ever attain any of those things.
> To me the real enlightened view is to use social media as a tool while not letting it consume your life.
That's where the trouble starts. You don't have control when you use social media. By its very nature, it draws you in like a vortex. You can't get out.
Personally, I live in a city with no natural community. I'm married but have no family here and only a couple acquaintances. I tried to quit Instagram a couple years ago but just ended up more isolated than I already am.
I think this type of situation is common for a lot of people. Social media is the glue that ties us to friends in distant places, which is why it's successful.
If you have actual community available to you quitting is much more doable.
I think the problem starts when you have no real life community. You are prey to the algorithms with nothing to balance them out.
You may be ok, but I know a few people who have been possessed by the algorithms and influencers. They have one thing in common, they live in isolation with no community.
I think that the basis of these is that parents, especially mothers, do not pay enough attention to their children. The entry of mothers into business life left children without love, indifference and defenseless. As a result of this incident, children try to take this attention from external attention centers, such as TikTok.
