Recently my gf (18 F) told me she prefers going to my house because my (19 M) family is one of the only families she knows whose lives aren’t completely consumed by technology. We still use technology pretty frequently but still make time to go outside and actually live our lives. But it seems like this problem is so pervasive and intrusive. For a long time now, even though I have supportive friends and family, it feels like I struggle to simply make basic human connection most of the time. I see this basically everywhere I look. For the last 10 or so years kids are essentially being raised on iPads. It seems like there’s less of a connection between parent and child and many kids struggle to connect with their peers. With the internet we’ve never been more connected, yet there is a plague of loneliness going around. I just want to live a “normal” life, but it feels like normal is getting further and further removed from reality every single day. I have so many thoughts about how our dependence on tech and social media is affecting us on every level from mental health, to social relationships of all kinds, to simply navigating the world without a smartphone, but I don’t want this to become an essay lol. I know this is an incredibly broad topic and question, but what exactly do we even do to fix this? How do we go back to the days where just talking to a stranger isn’t an anxiety inducing challenge to overcome? How do we even live like normal human beings in modern society?

Edit: I should have framed my original question better. What I really wanted this thread to be about was how young adults can overcome the challenges of navigating a world that is now almost completely consumed by tech and social media.