Amarillo Kid Goes Door to Door Looking For Friends
Younger generations are struggling to find friendships.
In a video posted to the Chinese-controlled social-media app TikTok last week, an Amarillo child went door-to-door in his neighborhood, asking if anyone knew any kids around his age because he needed friends “really bad.”
The couple who answered the door directed Shayden to a house down the street with kids his age, but it turns out those kids had been bullying him.
The couple then launched a GoFundMe for Shayden in hopes that they could raise some money for him to buy some video games, clothes, and maybe some amusement park tickets or a vacation. They ended up raising a whopping $37,000!
A study by Harvard in 2021 (before COVID lockdowns) showed the following:
36% of American adults reported serious loneliness “frequently” or “almost all the time or all the time.” This included 61% of young people aged 18-25 and 51% of mothers with young children.
Half of lonely young adults reported that no one in the past few weeks had “taken more than just a few minutes” to ask how they were doing or made them feel like anyone “genuinely cared” about them.
63% of young adults are suffering with significant symptoms of anxiety or depression.
A recent survey post-COVID lockdowns showed the following:
Young adults in lower-income homes are more likely to feel lonely.
Of the age ranges, young adults had the highest levels of loneliness.
Those living in big cities actually showed the highest level of loneliness compared to those who lived in sparsely populated areas.
Many find these results interesting considering how connected we are, especially young people, through the internet and our cell phones. But social media has been a huge factor in leading young adults and children, especially young girls, towards depression.
Studies surrounding Instagram usage showed that 1 in 3 teenage girls had worsening body image concerns. Spending hours a day glued to a phone and gauging self-worth based on “likes” has extreme impacts on mental health.
While watching a debate with John Doyle and Destiny last week, Doyle brought up the point many parents feel more comfortable knowing their kids are at home, under their roof, playing video games, on their phones, or glued to the computer rather than out doing the risky things the parents did when they were kids, like partying, drinking, and sneaking out of the house. But an argument could be made that the sort of risky things parents don’t want their kids to do are actually beneficial to their health as these activities teach social skills, build character, and help young adults create close groups of friends.
Rep. Jared Patterson had a fantastic bill aimed at solving this issue, but it seems Texans weren’t ready for it yet:
Guess we’ve got to wait until things get much worse before we take action on what social media is doing to kids.
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The fact some parents would rather their kids stay inside on a screen all day, rather than actually do things, is disturbing. Maybe they'll rethink that when their son's only girlfriends are AI-generated.
The fact the kid was going door to door gives me hope. I remember going door to door when I moved to a new house to find out where the kids lived in my new neighborhood.
Keep up the work young man. You’ll find a buddy soon.