Emotional Anxiety

I love watching murder-solving documentaries without having to pay full attention—a dirty little secret.

These shows rarely stick with me, but this particular one did. The doc is called “Why Did You Kill Me” and was made in 2021, although the murder occurred in 2006. A young woman is shot in a car with her family, and nobody knows why or who. The police enter the picture as the viewer learns about the town, the families, the gangs, and all of their relationships.

Her mother wants to seek justice for her daughter. Her sister engages MySpace to find suspects. She creates different profiles for different people she is trying to reel in. They believe they know who shot the gun. What is mind-blowing is how this teenage girl was an expert at using MySpace to brand herself — essentially pretending to be two profiles and luring people in—a social media expert of the time.

Watching and listening to how she went about it was like a trip down memory lane. People freaked out when MySpace launched in 2003, and there was zero regulation on the site. Besides the data breaches, the relationships that anybody could have as a child are scary. This kid knew that, but so many who were exposed to the ability to find people across the globe whom they could perhaps relate to, rather than the kids at their local school, spoke volumes about the need for curricula to teach happiness and address mental anxiety and behavioral issues. Sex ed of the next generation?

Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube suck you in, leaving you to waste countless hours disconnected from society. As an adult, I have anxiety over what is happening in the world, and I wonder what is real and what isn’t. Do I enjoy seeing the Chanel Show in the subway? Absolutely. Do I need to watch ten shows in a row? Definitely not. But that is not what teenage kids are doing.

I love that Kathy Hochul banned cell phones in schools. Nobody needs them in that environment. Let kids focus, let them run around, let them giggle, let them read, and educate their brains so they can learn and interact with each other. The mental health issues among children are sky high, and I am all for evolution and technology, but how we use technology is the key to less angst.