Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to a naive audience back in 2007. Little did we know how quickly this handheld device would alter our minds and transform society.
By the time the iPhone had been released, social media platforms like MySpace and Facebook had already taken off to a degree, but they were not yet available on handheld smartphones.
If you wanted to check your Facebook feed and messages for example, you had to sign-in from a desktop computer, which added some friction to the process.
Then mobile first Instagram launched in 2010, focusing on photo updates rather than text. Fifteen years later, the app boasts nearly 2.5 billion users (according to Grok), all of whom have instant access to it via an always-on, always-connected device.
Rapid Instagram Growth
While the convenience of being constantly connected to friends, family, and even celebrities has its advantages, we cannot deny the negative impact that the rapid adoption of smartphones and social media is having on our society.
Impact On Socializing
I first noticed it on the city train in the early 2010s.
At that time, less than half of the passengers were staring down at their shiny new devices. Nowadays it's nearly 100%, and strangers don't talk to each other like they used to.
At friend or family gatherings it's common for everyone to have their face down on their devices, rather than thinking of something to say to spark up a conversation.
Woman are opting to get more attention online these days, rather than at bars and clubs where men used to gather to show off their personalities and social skills.
Dating and Relationships
We used to live in a world where a woman's options for getting married were limited to her hometown, where she would have to meet local suitors at bars or events.
Nowadays, with dating apps and social media, the options are unlimited, and girls naturally want the best option available to them (hypergamy). That means "settling" for an average guy often doesn't happen anymore.
Girls' standards also increase as they receive attention from higher status men (eg: minimum 6 feet, 6 pack abs, 6 figure salary).
This leaves a large percentage of males out of the dating pool. The remaining small percentage of men that get all the attention have no reason to settle down, causing girls to ask the question "where have all the good men gone?".
Depression and Anxiety
The amount of time people spend checking social media these days is affecting their mental health as well.
Women get jealous watching their friends being flown out to Dubai for example, or seeing their friends getting married and having children. They are envious of the "beautiful" girls who, in reality, are putting on loads of makeup and using artificial filters.
By the way, has anyone else noticed an uptick in plastic surgery and cosmetic improvements these days? Nose jobs, boob jobs, braces, etc. I suspect social media is the cause.
Meanwhile, most men have given up on trying to get a real woman's attention these days, and have resorted to gaming, porn, and platforms like OnlyFans where they pay for female attention.
If you take away the average man's ability to get married and raise a family, the purpose of his life comes into question. Why work? Why strive? Why sacrifice? Ultimately, our society and infrastructure starts to deteriorate to the detriment of all.
Potential Solutions
Similar to a drug addict who just keeps making his life worse, perhaps our obsession with social media will not be solved until we hit "rock bottom", and we decide as a collective whole that things need to change.
One solution would be for all of us to voluntarily get off social media and put down the smartphones. But that would probably yield results similar to asking a drug addict to just stop using.
More extreme solutions have been suggested like using authority to take away the smartphones and restricting access to social media to bring society back into balance.
Or will we continue down this path and eventually start marketing AI girlfriends to lonely men, while investing in boxed wine and cat food for single women over 40?
Until next time...
I wonder if Steve Jobs understood how much the iPhone would transform society when he was up on that stage. Did the founders of Instagram know how their app would soon flip the dating world upside down?
In any case, we all need to adapt to the new world depending on how technology is impacting our individual lives. A collective decision may be on the horizon, but things may need to get a lot worse first.
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