Playing Devil’s advocate… Socialisation is what’s driving technology use. It’s just happening on the phones, not irl. Just like with alcohol, anyone not participating will be left out. If everyone’s on their phones all the time, IRL socialisation won’t matter compared to socialisation via phones.
I think this was true a decade ago, where people used social media to talk to each other and actively kept chats with friends, etc.
What I’m seeing now is social media got so hyper optimized for engagement that it became a passive consumption mechanism, and the only “socialization” left is sharing memes. It’s a widespread digital heroin epidemic
Disagree. Nothing can replace face to face socialization. We're not even close. Our minds are just adapting, but to a new local maximum that is far away from the global maximum of ideal.
Socialization online exists, but I'm not sure that it's the main activity on phones.
When you look at https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-for-teens it does not look promising.
Video is leading, then Gaming which can include socialization then third come Social media but with Tik Tok leading which I would not categorize as socialization.
Rather: avoidance of socialization is what's driving it. It's the easy way out of meeting people while still getting compliments and such and pretending "everything is fine". In that sense, it indeed has a lot in common with alcohol.
