Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - Empire State O'Reilly: Social Media Advisory

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Bill reports on the New York City social media advisory issued by Mayor Eric Adams. Originally only available in the New York City area, Bill’s Empire State O’Reilly commentary addresses local New York issues, but those issues have implications, impact the country, and mirror problems in other states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's a story that I find fascinating. So New York City Mayor Eric Adams has classified social media, okay, smartphones, computers, all that, as a quote, public health hazard and an environmental toxin. So the New York City Health Commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vassan, has come out and said that the city is issuing an advisory about social media. First city in the country to officially do it. Okay?

Now, Adams says that parents should delay giving children a smartphone until the kids are 14 years old. This day and age, that's almost impossible because kids have to have a way to communicate with you, their parents, and their friends, or they'll be ostracized. So that's not realistic. However, you can put gizmos on that phone so you know what the kids are doing, and you should. Secondly, New York City has data that says 77 percent. of New York high school kids.

Spend three or more hours a day in front of screens, not including homework. Adam says TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, are, quote, fueling a mental health crisis by designing their platforms with addictive and dangerous features, unquote. I'd like to know what the dangerous. features are, by the way. I'd like to get a little more data out of the city. But I'm sympathetic

here. Now nationally, last year, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory warning that said excessive social media poses a profound risk to young Americans. This is all true. And I don't think there's any denying. And I've never heard anybody with any intelligence say it's not a harm. Because it diverts the kids from doing positive things. They become lazy. They stay inside too much. They can get addicted to various things on these machines. Unhealthy things. They have access to terrible things. You know what I'm talking about. Okay. So this is a serious problem. Now, if you walk the streets of New York City, you will find seven out of ten people walking with you are looking down at their phone. They're not looking ahead of them or what's around, or whether there's a bike guy going to run them down in the bike lane or a car going to hit them in an intersection.

They're looking at their phone. and even though it's against the law to text and drive, believe me, they're texting and driving and accidents are piling up. So this is a crisis. Mayor Adams is correct, but there's no solution to it other than parents wiring up the dopy machine so they know what their kids are doing. And again, you should do that. But there's no solution because it's freedom.

You have a freedom and look at your stupid machine every waking moment of every waking day. And we can't come in and say you can't do it. But you're going to flunk, you're going to be terrible at your job, you're going to have an awful life. So that the downside of internet addiction should be well publicized, just as it was for tobacco, for cigarettes. It should be public service announcers all over the place about this stuff. If you are addicted to your phone, your computer, your gaming, whatever it is, you will fail in your life. You will fail. And chances are you're going to hurt somebody in the process.

Where is that message? I don't hear that message. And the final thing is, you know, life is to be experienced. Part of the human condition is learning from doing, not staring at a screen. Ugh.