Commentary
I was visiting with a friend who told me an all-too-familiar story. Her teenage niece adores TikTok. Too much. She spends many hours a day on it. It’s become her secret world, much more influential over her outlook on life than her parents, church, or physical community. It shapes her values and opinions. She finds herself in dark dysphoric patterns that adults around her cannot understand. Addiction only begins to describe it.
The story gave me the chills and it reminds me of a visit I had with an older family member. Every 10 minutes or so she would pick up her phone and look and then announce to me some random news item. Finally I asked what she was looking at. It was the CNN app blowing up her phone constantly. I asked how this came to be. She didn’t know. It was just there. She doesn’t like it but doesn’t know what to do about it….