Gen Z wishes social media didn't exist — but can't stay away

Gen Z Jonathan Haidt Snapchat Social media TikTok x Zoomers

About half the members of Gen Z wish the most popular social media platforms among their generation had never been invented, according to new polling. Some 50% of respondents wished X (or its predecessor Twitter) had never been invented, compared to 47% for TikTok and 43% for Snapchat. For YouTube and Netflix, by comparison, under 20% of Zoomers wished the same.

As Jonathan Haidt and Will Johnson wrote in the New York Times today, this indicates that social media, unlike other forms of digital entertainment, is addictive — “more like cigarettes” than walkie-talkies. Further, 39% of Zoomers spend four to six hours a day on social media, and nearly a quarter spend at least seven hours on it. The kids are not alright.

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Gen Z wishes social media didn’t exist — but can’t stay away

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