Lauren Greenfield
The kids are really not alright according to Social Studies, a five-part docuseries chronicling a year in the lives of disparate California teenagers and the seismic impact social media has on their day-to-day—and, consequently, on their ideas about themselves, each other, and the world at large.
Lauren Greenfield’s non-fiction endeavor (Sept. 27, on FX) shines a spotlight on growing up in the age of smartphones, Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram. What it reveals is a scary new reality in which everything good and bad about pre-adulthood has been exacerbated by being constantly, addictively online. It may end hopefully, but the road to that relatively upbeat conclusion is paved with all manner of misery that will make parents consider becoming Luddites.
"Social media is our lifeline, but also a loaded gun,” says Jonathan, a 17-year-old senior at Los Angeles’ Palisades Charter High School, which many of Social Studies’ boys and girls either recently graduated from or currently attend. Director Greenfield convinced her numerous subjects to record their screens in order to provide a window into their daily digital interactions with friends, families, and strangers. Such access is illuminating in and of itself. Just as enlightening, though, are these teens’ candid conversations about the ups and downs of their 21st-century experiences, filled as they are with issues regarding sexism, racism, homophobia, insecurity, anxiety, sexual assault, bullying, body-image pressures, and college mania—just to name a few.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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