Tik Tok, around the clock, Doc!

Downloads, out-takes: "What's it gonna' take...?!" "This dock can turn your Android  phone into a PC!" "The Doc will see you now...now that you have an in-voluntary movement dis-order...after viewing too many Tik Tok videos...in such a short time span, shortening your attention...which is a secondary reason you are here today..." and finally, "How Teens Recovered from Tik Tok Tics" (New York Times, 2/13/23)...It's all come to this, in-voluntarily speaking...

Should come of no surprise: "No wonder"..."Go figure"..."Duh!" -- as in the formula that could give rise to such a condition that we as parents, trying to, as "Nana" fore-warned me -- as a parent, as an aspiring "mental health professional" -- about the hazards on behalf of the younger generation, all those developing minds out there, of over-Xposure...which in her words, was found in "they have so much coming at them so fast...so many choices to make" These sagacious words, as I mentioned here, more than once, the utterance of which took a-byte the time of an average 'tic talk' video, these daze...As Nana shared her over-view of the (pre-internet) community these "teens" were growing up in, which may, if "WE" are not careful, could find them...It was as if she saw this coming, not just the HUGE implications of surfing all day and night, but the potential of the formula of "Billions and billions" (early meme of Carl Sagan a sagacious commentator on the Cosmos in which we live) of bytes of info, add in the now billions of users, and finally the average amount the "end user" uses per day, which is now 52 minutes according to those following our teens and children around (which itself should scare US into action)...and you have what Nana would have said (I believe by X-trapolation) is a formula for OverX-posure, potential corruption😕😖😟, (premature) "loss of innocence" ("just let them be children...it goes so quickly..." she would say)...let alone tics, as in "involuntary movements"...Or, as she may have envisioned it...

Hickory Dickory Dock: A highly popular (what used to be called "Nursery") rhyme, which continued on, almost pre-saging, staging what was to come...(my words which may corrupt the original intent)..."the mouse in their hands ran up the clock, the clock struck one, then two, then..." Nursey rhymes being replaced, usurped even 😟😢 by hand-holding being replaced by all those had-held devices...even at night-time when our youngsters, after a day, and pre-bedtime ritual of "horsing around!" (what they, our parents used to call it)...now being re-referenced as "Mousing!"...All of which, as our children used to actually do...calling US out (or into their rooms, on occasion, even as teens) for...

PC: No, not the one they asked for, for their birthday, which along with a host of devices, is a call out for Parental Controls (which many commentators of tech as well as psych. are calling the modern day version of an oxy-moron)...trying to stay a step ahead, including, especially when they (our youngsters, teens) don't call out for it...the modern day equivalent of "Click it or tik-it...dock it or I'll lock it..." This guidance for PG especially when they are ostensibly trying to "settle down in there!" Absent such counter-measures, along with Nana, Sagan, and other pre-saging sages...left to their own devices, or all the ones they now, themselves, own...

"I shutter, I mean shudder, to think..." Or is that just my "nervous leg" that sometimes occurs when I am pre-occupied with such room-in-nations...about what's causing their body to "Twitch", even as they are falling into a deep slumber..."what's going on in that head of theirs?!"😕😟 Therapies for which, now (and then) essentially include...time-tested wisdom, handed down through the ages...

A 2-fer: Shortened version, for those who are now among the billions and billions who are STM-challenged, or otherwise referred to as "shortened attention spans" from viewing all these collapsed, compressed, videos and such...It all comes down to this (no trade secrets here folks): "go outside and play" coupled with "turn it off and go to sleep..." Otherwise, "like it or not...tomorrow will be here before you know it..." And what could be accomplished if/when WE get our teens (and the rest of US) to turn off their phones...What WE boomers, growing up, experienced as a "test pattern" in the form of a "Peacock" (NBC) after the playing of the National Anthem..."signing off..." In-voluntarily.