Thread by @insomnochick

Can we talk about how we giggle and shrug our way through teaching our kids how to socialize with each other without ever opening their mouths to speak? It's not that they don't use the phone, they WON'T use it. 1/

So these kids who can barely communicate using spoken English, are expected to make new friends, and sustain those relationships, exclusively through text and emoji and memes? Really?! 2/

How much meaner are you willing to be that way than over the phone? How much more likely are you to ignore what someone is saying when they can't see you listening (or not listening)? How much easier is it to lie outright? 3/

If you don't want a confrontation, how much easier is it to ghost someone? What about manipulative behavior, like passive aggression, "leaving someone on 'read'" for days, making them wonder, then popping up and lying about not having your phone? 4/

Let's face it: even our "nice" kids are becoming cynical, snarky, passive-aggressive, inarticulate, fragile little assholes, even to their so-called friends. They use more foul language, more insults, and are less intimately acquainted with each other than any prior generation 5/

By the time most girls have their first sexual encounter, they've had fewer full-length conversations with boys at all, and possibly none with the guy they'll do it with. It was all arranged over text. 6/

Suggest they should talk, date, get to know each other, and most younger teens will look at you like you've got three heads. They'll say they do talk, over text, or snap, or IG, or discord, or hangouts, maybe if they're lucky, FaceTime a little. 7/

That's not talking. Gone are the lengthy phone calls of yesteryear, and we had to have those sharing the house phone with everyone in the house! What we would have given for our own private line to talk for hours! Now they can, and they won't! WTF?!8/

"It's just not done, mom!" That's what they say. I suggest they be the one who does, and my kids laugh. They say "Try calling, that's how you get blocked; only creepy people call." I ask about her BF, and if she'd block her if she called and she said no.9/

Ok then! We are making progress! Why not? "Well she's cool, we are good friends, etc." How'd that happen: in person, at work. Right, see the point kiddo? Meet people in person, you don't need all those ways to hide! 10/

I don't know...It's obviously something l'll never understand, but if you're a parent who has a way to get kids out of text, and speaking again, package that shit. You'll make millions./END