Culture Rot In The Age Of Screens

We used to worry that smartphones were melting our attention spans.

Turns out the bigger story may be how they’re eroding something deeper… our ability to be present, to care, to act with conscience… in our actual, breathing, protein forms.
There’s a new study floating around that claims that we’re not just distracted (The troubling decline in conscientiousness via Financial Times).
It says we’re becoming less conscientious… less anchored in physical space… more anxious when confronted with real people instead of pixels.

And yes, there has been a lot of back and forth around just how credible all of this research is.

It’s a good reminder that correlation isn’t causation, but the timing is hard to ignore. 
Think about what we’re being told.
We’re not just fidgeting in meetings or zoning out mid-conversation.
But an entire generation losing the muscle memory of showing up with focus, empathy and accountability.

The irony is brutal.

The device that connects us to everyone… is making us worse at being with anyone.
In public spaces, we retreat to screens instead of eye contact.
At dinner tables, we scroll instead of speak.
Worse, we hand the kids a tablet and call it peace.
At work, we dodge responsibility by disappearing into endless notifications.

It’s not just bad manners.

It’s the quiet rewiring of social trust.
Because conscientiousness isn’t about productivity hacks or checking to-do lists.
It’s about caring enough to follow through. 
To notice others… to be accountable when no one is watching… to answer the phone when someone wants to talk (not text).

And when that atrophies… society starts to wobble.

You feel it in the rising baseline of anxiety.
The awkward silence when phones come out.
The exhaustion of always being “on” but rarely being with.
When you feel like The Olds because you would rather meet for coffee than be on Slack.

This isn’t just about you and your screen time.

It’s about what happens when we all carry this low-level erosion of presence into the culture at large.
We’re “here” physically but “everywhere” digitally… so… nowhere. 
What happens when our neighborhoods feel less neighborly?
When our workplaces feel less human and much more transactional?
When our kids grow up more fluent in TikTok than in small talk?
We used to worry technology would make us dumber.
Now the worry is it’s making us lonelier… in a crowd.

So maybe the question isn’t how to “detox” from screens.

The real question is whether we can rebuild the capacity to care… to show up… to be with one another in ways that no device can simulate.
And, maybe, we need to help our kids like we did when we started talking about car seats, using seat belts and smoking… safety first.
Because if not… this isn’t just brain rot.

It’s culture rot.

This is what Robyn Flynn and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · Culture Rot In The Age Of Screens – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

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