A couple of weeks ago, I attended a panel discussion put on by the Board of Ed that was vaguely about social, emotional, and gender issues in teenagers. It wasn’t entirely clear what the panel was supposed to discuss, and the questions put out by the moderator weren’t much help. The panel was composed of two middle-aged school guidance counselors from nearby towns, a twenty-something girl who wrote a book about being bullied, and another twenty something girl who was starting a business as a teen mentor.

I looked at my watch. I thought I would sneak out after thirty minutes.

But after a lot of rambling and a certain amount of self-promotion, the panel went off in a tangent that surprised everyone. They started telling stories about teenagers who had lost their ability to interact with real people, because they had become immersed in online relationships.

One counselor said that one day a girl came into his office sobbing. Between the tears, she gulped out that her boyfriend had broken up with her. The counselor asked what his name was. She said Michael. He asked what he last name was. She said she didn’t know between the sobs. The counselor was confused. He asked her if he was a fellow student at their school. She said she didn’t know. The girl was in a full fledge meltdown over a relationship with someone she never met in real life. It was all online.

The rest of the panel shared their own stories of kids who spent most of their time interacting with people on social media, but had no tangible real life experiences with other people.

The girl-mentor said that she was talking with a teenager about her friends. The teenager said that her best friend was horrible in real life, but great online, so she didn’t know if she should still be friends with her.

By the end of the panel, there was a consensus that kids were damaged by the enormous quantity of time that they spent on their phones. It was actually quite gripping. We staggered out of the assembly room two hours later freaked out and afraid, because even those of us who feel quite at home in the online world cannot possibly understand its impact on our kids.