I know many well-regulated women who spend hours on social media, and others who struggle while not being online
R
ecently I read Girls®, a new book seeking to explore the problems posed by digital and social media to young women’s mental health. It has been praised by reviewers as “punchy” and “a starting place for young women seeking guidance”. As a young woman always open to improving myself, I rolled my sleeves up.
Written by 26-year-old Freya India, it encourages young women to “look past what you’re being TOLD and see what you’re being SOLD”. Big tech, the book says, is preying on the insecurities of its users; the recent mental health crisis in young women should be chalked up to social media, the internet and our addiction to it.
The book is a litany of all the different ways in which young women have been ruined. “We wasted our childhoods chasing something that does not exist.” “We forever damaged what little love we had for ourselves.” “We are vain and insecure.” Reading it, I agreed with many of its points, but I also felt myself bristle against the tone – one shared by many other commentators, such as Jonathan Haidt who, when thinking about young people, can only see the damage done by the scourge of social media. It paints young people as passive participants of the world, and is also reductive – as if a single great immoveable curse has been landed on my generation.
