Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Holiday cards vs. the never-ending barrage of social media

Teen girl reading unpleasant messages on mobile phone
Juan Algar/Getty Images
“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” — Annie Dillard

There was a time, not so long ago, when holiday cards were the means by which acquaintances updated us on their lives. Often featuring family photos with everyone dressed up, or perhaps casual with a seaside or mountainside backdrop, it was understood this was a “best shot” curated to feature everybody happily together.

Those holiday cards were eagerly opened, shared and even saved. Occasionally they might broach boundaries of good taste, perhaps featuring a photo of the sender’s new Lexus shining brightly as the Christmas star, or containing more pages than an IKEA assembly pack and listing the fifth grader’s achievements. But most of the time these cards conveyed the annual family update and welcome holiday cheer.


Now social media spreads such cheer throughout the year — holiday cards that do not stop. In the past, we were included on others’ card lists; now we are their “followers,” and they ours. Everyone spends lots of time exhibiting, checking likes, sending “stories,” updating statuses, etc. In other words, time alone with our phones.

Yet, in this constant barrage of “socialization” many feel isolated, even apathetic.

Playing to an audience is often fodder for personal discontent, despite large entourages. Besides, do we really care what our college roommate had for dinner last night when we haven’t seen her for 20 years? There is no real human connection through social media. We are not experiencing life first-hand, but rather in a fast-changing virtual reality.

It is a great irony of our age that, although we are more connected, we are less so. Look around at an airport, a waiting room, a grocery line. Most people are staring at their phones as if they’re magic mirrors, engaging only with the device in their hand.

And of course there’s this: What are you not doing while fixating on your screen?

Still, what’s the harm?

Plenty, according to social scientists, including increased depression and escalating suicide rates. Young people, whose social network is mostly electronic and whose validation depends upon it, are often taunted and preyed upon by those hiding behind online anonymity.

Teens’ unsophisticated willingness to buy into the glossy accounts of others’ fabulous lives causes increasingly low self-esteem, producing overriding dissatisfaction with their own lives. They compare their relatively tame — normal — lives with those of the more beautiful, more interesting, more sociable, which to their inexperienced eyes looks to be basically everyone else.

Increasing evidence of toxicity and damage is emerging, especially for our children. Johns Hopkins, Yale and others, have published articles on the detrimental effects of introducing electronic media too early, and the surgeon general has called for a warning label on social media platforms.

The surprising thing is that this is surprising. Cause and effect, and comparable to the one-child policy instituted in China in 1979 that resulted in too many baby boys (males, culturally preferred, females aborted.) Years later: not enough girls to marry the surplus of boys. Predictable. Facebook was launched in 2004, opening the door to social platforms, and we are just now starting to realize its detrimental effects?

In the great sweep of social media, illusion reigns with its inherent falseness, from the seemingly innocuous act of simple selection — not posting unflattering photos — to photo manipulation and digital Botox. Yet, have you ever, even once, heard anyone say, “Everyone loves her because she is so perfect”? It is never perfection we connect with: It is humanness.

Thanks to increasing access to this lightning-fast, but tinny, media, we now have young adults who would more likely leave their grandmother at the mall than their cell phone. Phones feel like their connection to the world. But are they? Listening to Grandma’s stories is likely a better, and certainly more rewarding, connection.

Life isn’t curated updates, not just “our story” playing out, but the stories we share, experiencing this time and this place together.

Rarely have we faced anything that so permeates the psyches of our lives, particularly those of the most vulnerable. Now, with brilliant AI breaking over the horizon, we tend to forget what is important. We may be able to find all the answers, but do we even know the questions?

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver

Curate it and post it? Or live it?

Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."

Read More

When Good Intentions Kill Cures: A Warning on AI Regulation

Kevin Frazier warns that one-size-fits-all AI laws risk stifling innovation. Learn the 7 “sins” policymakers must avoid to protect progress.

Getty Images, Aitor Diago

When Good Intentions Kill Cures: A Warning on AI Regulation

Imagine it is 2028. A start-up in St. Louis trains an AI model that can spot pancreatic cancer six months earlier than the best radiologists, buying patients precious time that medicine has never been able to give them. But the model never leaves the lab. Why? Because a well-intentioned, technology-neutral state statute drafted in 2025 forces every “automated decision system” to undergo a one-size-fits-all bias audit, to be repeated annually, and to be performed only by outside experts who—three years in—still do not exist in sufficient numbers. While regulators scramble, the company’s venture funding dries up, the founders decamp to Singapore, and thousands of Americans are deprived of an innovation that would have saved their lives.

That grim vignette is fictional—so far. But it is the predictable destination of the seven “deadly sins” that already haunt our AI policy debates. Reactive politicians are at risk of passing laws that fly in the face of what qualifies as good policy for emerging technologies.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why Journalists Must Stand Firm in the Face of Threats to Democracy
a cup of coffee and a pair of glasses on a newspaper
Photo by Ashni on Unsplash

Why Journalists Must Stand Firm in the Face of Threats to Democracy

The United States is living through a moment of profound democratic vulnerability. I believe the Trump administration has worked in ways that weaken trust in our institutions, including one of democracy’s most essential pillars: a free and independent press. In my view, these are not abstract risks but deliberate attempts to discredit truth-telling. That is why, now more than ever, I think journalists must recommit themselves to their core duty of telling the truth, holding power to account, and giving voice to the people.

As journalists, I believe we do not exist to serve those in office. Our loyalty should be to the public, to the people who trust us with their stories, not to officials who often seek to mold the press to favor their agenda. To me, abandoning that principle would be to betray not just our profession but democracy itself.

Keep ReadingShow less
Fighting the Liar’s Dividend: A Toolkit for Truth in the Digital Age

In 2023, the RAND Corporation released a study on a phenomenon known as "Truth Decay," where facts become blurred with opinion and spin. But now, people are beginning to doubt everything, including authentic material.

Getty Images, VioletaStoimenova

Fighting the Liar’s Dividend: A Toolkit for Truth in the Digital Age

The Stakes: When Nothing Can Be Trusted

Two weeks before the 2024 election, a fake robocall mimicking President Biden's voice urged voters to skip the New Hampshire primary. According to AP News, it was an instance of AI-enabled election interference. Within hours, thousands had shared it. Each fake like this erodes confidence in the very possibility of knowing what is real.

The RAND Corporation refers to this phenomenon as "Truth Decay," where facts become blurred with opinion and spin. Its 2023 research warns that Truth Decay threatens U.S. national security by weakening military readiness and eroding credibility with allies. But the deeper crisis isn't that people believe every fake—it's that they doubt everything, including authentic material.

Keep ReadingShow less
From TikTok to Telehealth: 3 Ways Medicine Must Evolve to Reach Gen Z
person wearing lavatory gown with green stethoscope on neck using phone while standing

From TikTok to Telehealth: 3 Ways Medicine Must Evolve to Reach Gen Z

Ask people how much they expect to change over the next 10 years, and most will say “not much.” Ask them how much they’ve changed in the past decade, and the answer flips. Regardless of age, the past always feels more transformative than the future.

This blind spot has a name: the end-of-history illusion. The result is a persistent illusion that life, and the values and behaviors that shape it, will remain unchanged.

Keep ReadingShow less