Domino Generational Neglect and the Digital Caveman Generation

2025 was one of the years marked by generational neglect in a domino effect, highlighted by the cancellation of television channels and programmes aimed at young audiences, both on cable and broadcast TV. Notable examples include Disney Channel (2020), Cartoon Network (2022), as well as POP, Pop Max, Tiny Pop (2025), and MTV (2026). The same fate befell recently with the magazine that ceased publication: Teen Vogue (2025).

They all shared the same golden goose: young people. Most lost their audience to the other screen, the internet, and struggled financially to maintain their status as spokespeople for youth and their connection with that audience. In the face of this absence, are we simply casting pearls before swine or recreating the caves of the Paleolithic era?

Digital Generation: Hyperconnected Yet Disconnected from Their Surroundings

It is undeniable how deeply screens have embedded themselves in our lives, as have the constant notifications that immobilise us. Both feed our addiction to scrolling, the fear of missing out, and the overload of information. Many studies have already examined the side effects of these habits on the human brain, and parents and schools often restrict screen time depending on age or even prohibit. Even so, the 15–24 age group still represents the highest rate of internet use worldwide. The screens are getting bigger, blocking their faces, closing off the windows to the world.

I still remember my childhood during that transitional period to the digital. At the family’s holiday home, I had far more freedom than in the apartment where I lived; as soon as I learned to ride a bicycle, it became my loyal companion during the holidays. The estate was full of children, each immersed in their own imaginary world of play. On the rare occasions I returned during my adolescence, the same place seemed to grow increasingly empty.

Internet: A Means of Communication or a Digital Cave?

By nature, regardless of the generation, teenagers are often labelled antisocial. Yet adolescence is a delicate phase, marked by discoveries that demand patience and genuine support. Many young people refuse to communicate with their parents or other family members.

I was fortunate to have been a child on the cusp of adolescence during the golden age of youth-focused channels, absorbing the values portrayed in Disney Channel and Nickelodeon: aspirational lifestyles, light-hearted content, and the nostalgia of sitting on the toy-room sofa with my younger sister. I also had the privilege of growing up with a Gemini mother who shared her own teenage channels of communication with me, the teen magazines she had loved. Every month it was guaranteed on the newsstands; I remember the posters, quizzes, and leafing through the articles.

This domino-effect of cancellations erodes potential bridges that once connected parents and children or other possible means of communication, leaving them adrift in the vastness of the internet.

Anemoia: The Nostalgia for a Time This Generation Never Lived

A common feeling among today’s adolescents is anemoia. Many turn to analogue activities and hobbies, which have always existed as a way of escaping the digital universe, while simultaneously setting trends through these cultural resurgences. This pursuit of a digital detox ranges from the use of dumbphones to crochet, knitting, ceramics, sculpting, embroidery, painting, and drawing, as well as the creation of journals, scrapbooks, and a renewed fascination with vinyl.

Artificial Intelligence: Oracle or Prison of the Digital-Cave Generation?

One phenomenon this generation is witnessing is the unsettling dominance of artificial intelligence, now present everywhere and available at a click, with age restrictions still under debate. The impact on young people is worrying and manifests in various ways: as a source of misinformation through manipulated videos, as a toxic attachment functioning almost like an oracle for adolescent dilemmas (including severe cases where AI has facilitated suicidal ideation), as a shortcut for homework, and as a tool that limits research and schoolwork.

Moreover, there is a growing trend of young people seeking emotional support and social interaction through AI platforms, replacing human friendships or romantic relationships. Not to mention the loss of basic skills, cognitive laziness, superficial knowledge, and excessive data sharing. It is the era of disconnection within hyperconnection.

This year also sparked discussions about the adultification and exploitation of children on social media, a landscape marked by the absence of regulation, turning the internet into a digital Wild West.

At the same time, teenagers are drawn to the stage of social media, where the influencer profession turns lives into a spectacle, accelerating adult responsibilities and exposing vulnerabilities in public. Often, they sell a lifestyle shrouded in lies: a false sense of ease, supposed luck, ignoring real barriers and the algorithms that shape the content they see.

A Generation Raised in the Shadow of the Pandemic

One often-overlooked factor is that many of these young people grew up during the restrictions of the 2020 pandemic. Social networks became their primary — and problematic — world, where most of their classes and social interactions took place. This reminds me of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where one’s perception of reality is mediated by shadows and masks or, in today’s world, by screens.

The Silent Collapse of Places Meant to Nurture Youth

Over 1,200 council-run youth centres in England and Wales have closed since 2010 due to funding cuts. These centres were intended to be vital community hubs that nurtured young talent, prevented crime, and improved social mobility, but their closure has left a significant void in local support networks.

It is impossible to discuss 2025 without mentioning the Netflix phenomenon of Adolescence, bursting bubbles, when tackling Andrew Tate, the manosphere, the incel community, the 80:20 rule, and the red pill/blue pill trend. At the margins, statistics on stabbing crimes are growing. In the year ending March 2025, there were 3,698 knife or offensive weapon offences committed by children aged 10 to 17 dealt with by the Criminal Justice System (CJS) in England and Wales. In the previous year, 40 children (aged 0–17) were killed with a knife or sharp instrument, 17 of them aged 15 or younger.

Vulnerability and Quality of Life: A Paradox?

On the other side of this issue, at least 25% of people under 25 worldwide lack basic infrastructure such as internet access and electricity. These young people enjoy better sleep quality, more efficient use of time, less informational overload, and reduced social pressure and comparison. Yet, let the first stone be cast by anyone who has never noticed that money often opens doors to happiness, and that lack of access can be harmful in countless ways.

New Media, Old Fears: Perpetual Moral Panics

Moral panics have accompanied every generation. Any new medium of communication or cultural expression tends to be demonised by conservatives and religious groups as a kind of “popular demon.” From cinema (early 20th century), rock ‘n’ roll (1950s), Teddy Boys (1950s), Mods and Rockers (1960s), Punk Rock (1970s), Acid House and Raves (late 1980s), to videogames (1990s).

The British programmes are now predominantly in the digital space. What has drastically declined are the traditional media channels and the physical spaces of community support. Adolescents remain hidden behind their screens, absorbing crumbs of fragmented information in silence, while capitalism continues its tireless hunt for consumers, governed by the laws of supply and demand.

And if the digital-cave generation remains tucked away behind their screens, are we truly connecting with the world, or merely living among the shadows of a simulated reality?