I think it also has to do with the wider socioeconomic situation. (Most) people make less disposable money on the whole than they did before. Sure, the minimum wage might increase but rent and food and insurance is going up faster! And the restaurants and mall stores (when they exist at all) and theme parks certainly aren't cheap. You could go walk a park every day but that's just tiring. There are people working themselves to the bone without enough extra energy to fulfill their children's lives let alone their own. People are being squeezed from all sides.
In contrast, I'd say social media is not the cause but the reaction to such things. I mean, we all saw particular people get genuinely addicted to scrolling Facebook in the early years of the service, but that rarely totally ostracized them from their previous social circles, it might have even grown them! But now with things like twitch streamers on a schedule, ready to be your friend Friday night, and customized YouTube feeds of endless hours of documentaries and Twitter and even HN. The opportunity is there. Someone who's already staying in can get that fix, anyone who's avoiding anything can do it perfectly. It's a cycle of control. It's soooooo much easier to sit and stare and laugh and maybe even engage than it is to text a group, see if anyone else is in the perfect intersection of bored and not tired and enough income to go to dinner.
We all got dripfed this stuff by force and sheer survival for the last couple years, and I understand it's hard to rip the tubes out of your arm.
In contrast, I'd say social media is not the cause but the reaction to such things. I mean, we all saw particular people get genuinely addicted to scrolling Facebook in the early years of the service, but that rarely totally ostracized them from their previous social circles, it might have even grown them! But now with things like twitch streamers on a schedule, ready to be your friend Friday night, and customized YouTube feeds of endless hours of documentaries and Twitter and even HN. The opportunity is there. Someone who's already staying in can get that fix, anyone who's avoiding anything can do it perfectly. It's a cycle of control. It's soooooo much easier to sit and stare and laugh and maybe even engage than it is to text a group, see if anyone else is in the perfect intersection of bored and not tired and enough income to go to dinner.
We all got dripfed this stuff by force and sheer survival for the last couple years, and I understand it's hard to rip the tubes out of your arm.