Teenaged Anxiety
by Michael Doyle

Social media has tipped toward sadness.
Out of balance in a world of madness.
It's hard to build up resilience
In this world stripped of independence.

Helicopter hover offers no lasting solution. 
Indeed, it's a factor of rabid contribution.
The same player shoots up the school again
The world and what's within can't be friends.

Every parent hopes for simplicity,
But it's a world of angst and anxiety.
At least for the modern girl's mind,
Loaded with hormones in a world unkind.

Anger pours itself into tinges of outrage,
Atrocity and cruelty turn life's page.
Life cannot be a constant catastrophe.
Yet why is it, and how does it seem to be?

Minor inconvenience doesn't need to be misery 
Changing how we see things isn't a mystery,
But paints a soothing layer to the spectacle,
Shaping a world where a modern girl feels capable.

Every parent hopes for simplicity,
But it's a world of angst and anxiety.
At least for the modern girl's mind,
Loaded with hormones in a world unkind.

Time spent alone staring into the virtual void,
Would leave the best of us feeling annoyed.
Existentially speaking, bad vibes are leaking
Into the world's stew even as we are speaking.

All the evidence is more than indicative 
Social Media is proven harmfully addictive.
It's numbingly and eye-bleedingly obvious,
These are the tapestries of the devious.

Every parent hopes for simplicity,
But it's a world of angst and anxiety.
At least for the modern girl's mind,
Loaded with hormones in a world unkind.

(c) April 16, 2026   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved