One would hope that a society could address more than one ill at a time, and that we could deal with rampant gun violence while also trying to ameliorate the harms from highly-addictive social media. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we’re seriously dealing with even one of those at a time, but it sure would be nice!
That said, you’ve also got to look at the probability that a given population is going to face a given harm. School shootings are appalling, and we should be doing something (any of the dozen perfectly viable somethings clearly available) to stop them. But the actual number of kids who will ever get shot at is a fraction of a fraction. On the other hand, literally every kid in the world is a target for the harms of addictive social media. Hell, I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if, in the process of addressing the widespread psychological harms of social media, we might also measurably reduce the number of mass shootings.
One would hope that a society could address more than one ill at a time, and that we could deal with rampant gun violence while also trying to ameliorate the harms from highly-addictive social media. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we’re seriously dealing with even one of those at a time, but it sure would be nice!
That said, you’ve also got to look at the probability that a given population is going to face a given harm. School shootings are appalling, and we should be doing something (any of the dozen perfectly viable somethings clearly available) to stop them. But the actual number of kids who will ever get shot at is a fraction of a fraction. On the other hand, literally every kid in the world is a target for the harms of addictive social media. Hell, I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if, in the process of addressing the widespread psychological harms of social media, we might also measurably reduce the number of mass shootings.