I can almost guarantee that at some point in your life, you have heard a very passionate member of an older generation say, “It’s that dang phone!” Although they may substitute a different, inappropriate word unsuited for a school newspaper, their point remains the same.

Not to sound like your grandpa on Thanksgiving, asking if your ripped jeans were “half-off” and blaming the state of the world on “that phone,” but he’s got a point.

Don’t mistake me, many things were wrong with the world before social media, and I don’t believe that problems would simply disappear if social media did. However, I firmly believe that our society has suffered greatly due to these silly apps that seem to hold so much power over our lives.

For example, how many kids will grow up not knowing how to spell? Autocorrect and spell check have destroyed most people’s ability to spell. I could count on one hand how many kids my age know the difference between “their”, “there,” and “they’re.” If I see one more girl comment, “Your so pretty!” on another girl’s post, I might have to report it. It truly is not that complicated, considering that autocorrect does all the work for you. I fear kids’ disinterest in the basics of grammar will worsen in the coming generations with the technology they will grow up with.

If you do not recognize what is wrong with “Your so pretty!” then let me provide you with a concise grammar lesson. ‘Your’ is the possessive form of the word ‘you,’ meaning that it gives you ownership of the word that follows. For example, “Your dog is so cute” is correct because that form of ‘you’ gives you ownership of the dog. ‘You’re’ is a contraction meaning ‘you are.’ It is used in a sentence to substitute the phrase ‘you are.’ In this case, ‘You’re so pretty!’ is the proper form of the word.

As well, ‘there’ is a word used to specify location: “Over there” or “There is my dog” are correct uses of the word. ‘Their’ gives possession to whomever ‘they’ are; for example, “Their school is so nice.” ‘They’re’ is much like ‘you’re,’ as it is a contraction for the words ‘they are.’ “They’re so pretty” would be a proper use.

Now that the grammar police have digressed, I will return to my earlier point.

Little kids who are at ages where they should be growing developmentally and learning important life skills are instead learning words like “rizz” and “skibidi.” It’s terrifying to hear my eight-year-old brother use these words, but at least he already knows what nonchalant means. Instead of understanding basic grammar concepts and knowing how to spell, kids are learning to rely on assistive technology that will not always be there, especially in future careers and real-life situations.

As well as stunting growth, these technologies promote laziness. Instead of going outside to play, young kids are sitting on the couch all day, scrolling through TikTok or YouTube. It’s not that I don’t understand; phones are an easy way to please a restless child or distract a needy one when parents need to get something done. But this distraction technique is a slippery slope of obsession and laziness. Instead of completing an assignment, kids turn to their Snapchat AI bot. In a few clicks, kids can avoid doing any actual work. Are these the people you want performing life-saving surgery? Deciding the fate of the country? How about taking care of you in a nursing home in 70 years? No thanks. I’d rather have people who can write their own essays.

To be clear, none of this excludes me, considering that I use these social media apps anddefinitely need assistance from autocorrect sometimes. I scroll uselessly through TikTok, compare myself to random girls on Instagram, and send inane pictures of myself to my friends on Snapchat.

Regardless, I wish that they had never been created. While I have a strong disdain for them, I cannot bring myself to delete any of these apps. I get all my new music from TikTok, I love posting cute pictures on Instagram, and it is extremely convenient to text people over Snapchat.

What comforts me is the fact that I can, in fact, write my own essay without any help from my Snapchat AI. I can spell decently well enough that I am confident in my abilities to handwrite an essay…except if I have to spell psycho, I unfortunately need auto-correct for that one. I think it’s the weird ‘p’ followed by an ‘s,’ plus the fact that it looks nothing like the way you say it. Why don’t we just spell it “sighco”? Why is the ‘p’ even there??

Anyhow, spelling skills are not the only part of our society that suffers as a result of social media. I firmly believe that social media, especially Snapchat, has detonated any sort of chivalry in our generation. The other day, a boy added me on Snapchat and said, “Hey.” You can imagine how genuine my surprise was when I opened the blue chat to anything other than “Wyll,” which, if you don’t know, stands for “What you look like.” I am currently fighting extreme revulsion as I type those words out. Not only is this a total violation of stranger danger, but they don’t even have the decency to type the phrase out, let alone use a grammatically correct acronym.

Unfortunately, I have not met many boys my age who are not “Wyll warriors,” as social media has lovingly dubbed them. No person even needs the guts to reject someone in person anymore because now you can click a button to “unadd” them and never see them again. I think the entire idea behind a “talking stage” is the stupidest, most ridiculous thing ever. Like, what do you mean you are sending pictures of yourself to each other and having tedious small talk over Snapchat, and that constitutes being romantically involved? There are so many rules to “talking stages” and so many things that aren’t socially acceptable. I just don’t understand how we have strayed so far from Mr. Darcy’s level of yearning. Let’s bring that back because no way am I telling my kids one day that I met their father on a dating app…or worse…on Snapchat .

Insert a profuse amount of fake gagging and shock and pure horror right now.

For the entirety of my late childhood to pre-teens, my downloading of Snapchat was comparable to a Muslim traveling to Mecca. It would be the most important day of my life and inevitably lead to my own salvation (in the form of some cute boy sending me selfies). Snapchat was the key to everything the intermediate and middle school version of me needed in life: popularity, friends, and a boyfriend. When the fateful day arrived, nothing in my life changed, and I am still searching for those things.

I was finally allowed to download Snapchat at the very end of eighth grade, probably mid-May. The same year, around December, someone said to me, “Your Snap Score is basically zero.”. I was both confused and shocked that someone would pay any attention to my Snapchat profile and that somewhere around 19,000 was considered “zero.” Let’s say I had Snapchat for seven months when this was said to me. 7 months multiplied by an average of 30 days in each month is 210 days. 19,000 Snaps sent and received in 210 days is roughly 90 per day. How much of my life have I wasted opening and sending stupid pictures to people? I have completely stopped keeping “Streaks” with people, because why would I send you a picture of my ceiling every day? So I can see a little fire next to your name? I don’t even like most of the kids in this school enough to want to see their ceiling every day.

As you have now heard, I have many opinions on social media and how it negatively affects society. Unfortunately, I have sounded like a 70-year-old grandfather for far too long and must leave you with hope that whoever is reading this will choose to treat others on social media just how they wish to be treated face-to-face, and maybe together we can start a new trend of boycotting streaks and “talking stages.”