Analysis of Contemporary Texts on Social Media: Behavioural, Physiological, and Linguistic Manifestations

Abstract

The rapid architectural evolution of algorithmic social platforms has created intense academic and clinical debate about cognitive, behavioural and neurobiological perturbations in youth. This study offers a rigorous multi-methodological critique of four seminal contemporary texts published between 2022 and 2024: (1) The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt (2024); (2) The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World, Max Fisher (2022) (3) Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari (2022); and (4) Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka (2024). In this paper, we adopt a comparative textual and linguistic analysis approach to deconstruct the behavioural pathologies, somatic-physiological mechanisms, targeted messaging archetypes and metaphorical frames used by these authors. To contextualise these global theoretical frameworks, the study considers their applicability to the demographic context of Tamil Nadu, India, using reliable government data on telecommunications, official educational statistics, and published peer-reviewed public health literature. This paper synthesises verified age-stratified and gender-disaggregated findings across Generation Z (Early Gen Z: 13-17, Mid Gen Z: 18-21, and Late Gen Z / Young Professionals: 22-27). Structural, regulatory, pedagogical and clinical interventions in accordance with regional statutory frameworks such as India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act are presented.