everything about her was so human and i think if the world met its demise and humanity have to start over again... i hope this is the first book a human find.

As someone born in the early 90s, my experience growing up with the internet is so different from today and it makes this an interesting read so far. I’m young enough that I absolutely have seen the effects of social media in my personal life, but I also grew up very active online and even had a computer in my room by the early 2000s (I know, a shocker!). My dad is an early adopter of many technologies and I think he saw a lot of value in letting us explore. I have fond memories of nights spent doing homework and chatting on AIM, or posting in forums and having good discussions about common interests with people all over the world. I definitely did run across adult content at times, but I was old enough to figure out how to navigate it and had a good enough relationship with my parents to talk to them about it if I needed to. In a way, it taught me a little bit of internet resiliency. I learned how to avoid things that made me uncomfortable and find things I did want to see. But at the end of the day, the computer was tethered to my desk and I couldn’t bring it wherever I went. I went to school. I played outside. I had dinner with my family every night at the table. I hung out with my friends at the mall. Even in my own life, I see the decrease in those things over the years as I got an iPhone and got on social media. I’m making an effort now to emphasize the former over the latter, but it’s definitely not easy as a single adult! I feel for the parents dealing with this now.

I know I’m barely a quarter of the way in, but I think the key part of this book that I hope gets emphasized more is that this is a societal and cultural shift. The problem isn’t just that kids are spending so much time on the internet and social media from a young age (though that is a problem and there’s a lot of convincing data around development that shows it’s not good), it’s that everyone is. Kids learn from adults just as much as they learn from each other. I don’t have kids but I assume it’d be challenging to tell a kid not to be on social media at the same time that you’re scrolling your own phone or answering a work notification. There’s a lot of societal forces that are causing major isolation, especially in the US, but I do think that instant access through our phones is playing a pretty big role.