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'Social Studies' TV Series Takes Intimate Dive into Teens' Smartphone Life

This is the first generation born into a world with widespread social media. LOIC VENANCE / AFP/File
This is the first generation born into a world with widespread social media. LOIC VENANCE / AFP/File
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'Social Studies' TV Series Takes Intimate Dive into Teens' Smartphone Life

This is the first generation born into a world with widespread social media. LOIC VENANCE / AFP/File
This is the first generation born into a world with widespread social media. LOIC VENANCE / AFP/File

Sifting through the smartphones of dozens of US teens who agreed to share their social media content over the course of a year, filmmaker Lauren Greenfield came to a somber observation.
The kids are "very, very conscious of the mostly negative effects" these platforms are having on them -- and yet they just can't quit.
Greenfield's documentary series "Social Studies," premiering on Disney's FX and Hulu on Friday, arrives at a time of proliferating warnings about the dangers of social networks, particularly on young minds.
The show offers a frightening but moving immersion into the online lives of Gen Z youths, AFP said.
Across five roughly hour-long episodes, viewers get a crash course in just how much more difficult those thorny adolescent years have become in a world governed by algorithms.
In particular, the challenges faced by young people between ages 16 and 20 center on the permanent social pressure induced by platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
For example, we meet Sydney, who earns social media "likes" through increasingly revealing outfits; Jonathan, a diligent student who misses out on his top university picks and is immediately confronted with triumphant "stories" of those who were admitted; and Cooper, disturbed by accounts that glorify anorexia.
"I think social media makes a lot of teens feel like shit, but they don't know how to get off it," says Cooper, in the series.
'Like me more'
This is the first generation born into a world with widespread social media.
Via its subjects' personal smartphone accounts, the show offers a rare glimpse into the ways in which that hyper-connected reality has distorted the process of growing up.
We see how young people modify their body shapes with the swipe of a finger before posting photos, the panic that grips a high school due to fake rumors of a shooting.
"It's hard to tell what's been put into your mind, and what you actually like," says one anonymous girl, in a group discussion filmed for the docuseries.
These discussion circles between adolescents punctuate "Social Studies," and reveal the contradictions between the many young people's online personas, and their underlying anxieties.
Speaking candidly in a group, they complain about harassment, the lack of regulation on social media platforms, and the impossible beauty standards hammered home by their smartphones.
"If I see people with a six pack, I'm like: 'I want that.' Because maybe people would like me more," admits an anonymous Latino boy.
'Lost your social life'
The series is not entirely downbeat.
But the overall sense is a generation disoriented by the great digital whirlwind.
There are no psychologists or computer scientists in the series.
"The experts are the kids," Greenfield told a press conference this summer. "It was actually an opportunity to not go in with any preconceptions."
While "Social Studies" does not offer any judgment, its evidence would appear to support many of the recent health warnings surrounding hyper-online young people.
The US surgeon general, the country's top doctor, recently called for warning labels on social media platforms, which he said were incubating a mental health crisis.
And banning smartphones in schools appears to be a rare area of bipartisan consensus in a politically polarized nation.
Republican-led Florida has implemented a ban, and the Democratic governor of California signed a new law curbing phone use in schools on Monday.
"Collective action is the only way," said Greenfield.
Teenagers "all say 'if you're the only one that goes off (social media), you lost your social life.'"

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Belgrade's Landmark Hotel Yugoslavia Faces Likely Demolition, With Many Opposed

A woman walks past Hotel Yugoslavia, once a symbol of progress in the former socialist state of Yugoslavia that broke apart in the 1990s and a favorite gathering place for local residents as well as world leaders, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
A woman walks past Hotel Yugoslavia, once a symbol of progress in the former socialist state of Yugoslavia that broke apart in the 1990s and a favorite gathering place for local residents as well as world leaders, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
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Belgrade's Landmark Hotel Yugoslavia Faces Likely Demolition, With Many Opposed

A woman walks past Hotel Yugoslavia, once a symbol of progress in the former socialist state of Yugoslavia that broke apart in the 1990s and a favorite gathering place for local residents as well as world leaders, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
A woman walks past Hotel Yugoslavia, once a symbol of progress in the former socialist state of Yugoslavia that broke apart in the 1990s and a favorite gathering place for local residents as well as world leaders, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Belgrade’s iconic Hotel Yugoslavia, once a symbol of progress in the former socialist state of Yugoslavia that broke apart in the 1990s and a favorite gathering place for local residents as well as world leaders, now stands in eerie silence awaiting its likely demolition.
The once-bustling landmark — a leading example of modernist architecture when it was built in the 1960s — has fallen into disrepair, its future clouded by debates over its historical significance and the push for advanced development.
Its white facade, once polished and welcoming, is marred by crumbling concrete and graffiti. Inside, debris litters once-pristine red carpeted floors, while scattered pieces of broken furniture hint at the opulence that once filled its rooms and lobbies: Faded velvet armchairs, torn bed mattresses, sagging curtains and broken windows are all that remain of the luxury that once was. The wood-paneled presidential suite where top dignitaries would stay is now home to pigeons that fly in through the shattered glass.
As the Serbian capital grapples with hectic growth and new high-rises that dot its skyline, the almost certain fate of the hotel has sparked controversy, with some seeing it as a relic worth preserving and others envisioning new possibilities rising from its ruins.
In its heyday after it received its first guests in 1969, it was a five-star hotel boasting one of the biggest chandeliers in the world made of 40,000 Swarovski crystals and 5,000 bulbs.
Its guest list included Queen Elizabeth II, United States Presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, astronauts including Neil Armstrong, and Belgian and Dutch royals.
The hotel, with a spectacular view of the Danube River in the capital's New Belgrade district, was damaged in NATO bombing in 1999 in an armed intervention over Serbia’s bloody crackdown on Kosovo Albanian separatists.
Only parts of the hotel were fully renovated, and it kept receiving guests until a few months ago, when private investors announced plans to demolish the structure and build a new one in its place. Two 150-meter (500-foot) -tall towers containing a luxury hotel, offices and private apartments will be built, according to the new owners.
Asked why the landmark hotel needs to be completely destroyed instead of incorporated into the new project, Zivorad Vasic, a spokesperson for the investors, said there were several reasons.
"One is during the bombing in 1999, quite a lot of parts of the hotel were destroyed. Second, the hospitality industry completely and tremendously changed. When you look at hotels now and how they looked before, they were completely different,” he said.
Architect and tourist guide Matija Zlatanovic, who often takes tourists to the hotel to explain its rich history, said the plans for the new hotel are “quite controversial," especially because “there are valid concerns about the size of the buildings that are going to be erected here.”
“It follows the trend of towerization of Belgrade and the erection of enormous high rises all over," he said. “And we yet have to see about the impact that they’re going to have on this neighborhood.”
Neighbors who face living in the future shadows of the planned skyscrapers are not happy. Some are holding weekly protests against the new project, saying they will stop the demolition with their bodies if necessary.
Svetlana Gojun, one of the protesters, said Hotel Yugoslavia “represents a huge part of our history.”
“Half the world came to this hotel, from actors, musicians, politicians, writers,” she said. “Everyone is tied to this hotel. The whole world knows about that hotel. And now we will allow something like that to disappear?”