First Draft-3/11/17, 0100. 23rd Writing.
Heeey, this title resonated with me so I thought I could dig into it a bit more.
Who remembers ‘the good old days’? A common adage, which increases in use with wrinkles. “I remember when I was your age lollies were 5 cents”, “I remember when Iwas your age a jug was only $4” “I remember when was your age we got drafted for war” et cetera, (only just found out that’s what ‘etc.’ stands for haha, thought it was ‘excetera’). For relevant to our time, Who can remember the time before social media? It’s a stretch, but if you dig deep enough, it’s there. It’s crazy to think about a world liberated from social media. I mean, the most powerful man in the world, The Donald the Trump, is a big advocate of twitter clearly. Now you could probably argue he is just playing the masses game, which is understandable as he is also living in a democracy. But I’m not here to argue for or against Trump, that’s a rabbit hole I try to avoid. I’m also not here to spread the joy that social media has presented us, but I am also not here to deny that joy (a many good things have rose from it, most obviously the digital connections/communication we can make around the world with the click of a mouse). But, I am here as a worried human. I fear for the generations to come. I fear the evil that technology could bring. I fear social media. Just remember this though, I understand there are a lot of beneficial elements that have come from technology (placing my insurance policy now). Nevertheless, I’m going to put that aside to address some of the issues that I believe could be detrimental to our species.
It’s a peculiar scenario to be a person who grew up in a world both with, and without the internet. It’s weird asf to think of a world without the internet, impossible really. Imagine what it would have been like for the kids of the 60s/70s/80s. Imagine how much different there upbringing was. The restrictions on accessibility would have been tight. This is one of the dangers I think the internet will engulf our kids with. They will be able to find out anything they want; it’s just a google search away. It is too hard to restrict what our kids know and what they don’t know. Some may argue this is a good thing and more power to the kids. But surely you see the danger? Should kids know of the horrors that occurred in the 20th century? Well yes, everyone should, but at such a young age? I think not. That’s bound to fuck with their heads and lead them down a dark road filled with hatred, fear and confusion towards being itself. Should kids be able to look at porn? Sex is losing its sacred element, something I believe we should be more worried about than what we are. Porn is a contributor to this lose, mostly due to the unpractical vulgar actions that are ACTED out in those films. They are adult films for a reason; a fictional film at that. Should kids be able to talk to strangers? Because that is what social media allows isn’t it? You could argue that all the horrors the internet teaches our kids is just part of the learning process, the sooner they know the truth the better, allow them to be enlightened. But are they really capable of making those decisions? Is it not the job of said parents to introduce the horrors of the world to their kids, when they see fit? I don’t think kids should be able to know things at their own discretion, because once you know something, you can’t unlearn it. The internet provides them with the means to access anything and everything they want, whenever they want. The problem is that I can’t really offer a solution. Maybe some boss ass IT dude can sort out the internet in a way so it is ‘friendlier’ for our kids? I really don’t know how you would go about fixing the issue to be fair. But it does feel like the accessibility issue will be prominent in the generations to come and an impossibly hard task for parents to monitor. You could go super hippie on it and not have any internet in your house, but you can only shelter your kids from the real world for so long. Maybe we should be teaching our kids how to use the internet wisely and restricting/monitoring their access? For all I know there could be some legitimate software (or IT like that) that solves this whole problem already, leaving parents with 100% control over their internet. There are problems with that though. 1. 100% control never ends well. 2. They can’t control the entire internet (or is that the dangerous path we will go down? An internet that is run by people who pick and choose what the public gets to know. It’s not that far from our doorstep, look at China..) I just feel like there are always ways to get around it and kids are experts at picking locked doors, being the curious critters they are. Too much access for young souls, toughie.
Let us turn more to the social media aspect. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for digital communications. It makes life so much easier. You can contact your friends who are thousands of miles away by hitting this random button called “enter” (lol makes no sense! Just another language for the books). That would have been unimaginable for those who preceded social media, a true innovative break through. What I am worried about is that we are becoming reliant on this source of communication. People are starting to communicate purely through this digital space, in particular, our younger generations. You see people who are physically in the same room, but instead of looking each other in the eyes and talking, they prefer to look at their smart phones and message each other. How the fuck did this come to fruition?! It’s just god damn wretched. I cannot imagine the damage its inflicting on their social skills. People underestimate the importance of body language; I’ve heard that we communicate with one another 90% through our body (90%, unreal!). I’m worried that our younger population aren’t going to learn this language fluently. If they are mostly interreacting digitally, then they aren’t learning the necessary skills to have a physical conversation with a human. They aren’t learning how to judge how a social situation is unfolding. They won’t learn all the micro-expressions that tell us so much about a person. Think about a boy, who has had very little experience physically communicating, trying to interact with a girl they’re attracted to. They struggle enough as it is, but you add this factor in and they are fucked. How will they ever know if a girl is giving them the signals to make a sexual advance or not? Danger. We need body language to operate in this world because like it or not, we are social beings. We cannot live without each other. Is digital communication impairing our ability to communicate? Surely, it must be so. The scary alternative is a society in which people no longer need to physically communicate, a digital society (and there are already tech advancements, gaining momentum, that empower such a society. Just look at the potential in the realm of VR). Yea I’m sure that will go down fine and dandy.
Have you ever thought about the hours you put into social media (written before screen time)? I thought about it the other day and guessed about 2 hours a day. 2 whole hours predominately looking at bullshit, and I would consider my social media usage low in comparison to the average. We could use our time so much more productively, but no, we sit there like an addict, waiting to see what Jono did at 8.03pm. Frozen there, scrolling away, fully engaged without a care in the world, numbing our mind to reality. Scrolling, as though there is something of critical importance to find, but this is seldom the case. I would guess some people spend upwards of 8 hours on social media, daily. That’s a 9-5; that’s their life. They can’t miss the chance to post a picture about what they are up to, share their feelings, share a video to show they are part of a trend, whatever it may be. It’s like they are living for their presence on social media and some people literally do live off that presence. ‘How will this make me look if I post that?’ ‘Will people like me if I do that?’ ‘Do I look happy in this?’ It’s all a façade! People trying to deceive others into believing that’s who they are, people trying to deceive themselves that’s who they are! It’s both hilarious and sickening to see these social media creatures operating in the real world. They are constantly on their phone, just waiting for the chance to snap up a post worthy of their social media character. Get a fucking grip kid. They care so much about what other people think of them. In a way, it’s virtual existence, or maybe more correctly augmented at this point. The two personas (real and digital) are developing together, slowly but surely, they will amalgamate. A virtual world, where you don’t have to worry about the reality. A place where you can go to act out the person you want people to believe you are, the ultimate game of deception. People love playing that game, its enraging! Stop lying to yourself cunt! Learn who you are! Fuck the expedient option! Stop playing the façade, Jesus man. It’s a dangerous game that will hurt us all. Social media really is a blue pill reality. A place where you can scroll forever, over a multitude of platforms, and gain nothing of value for your time investment. All you get is some insight into the personas that people want to portray. Its fake!!! But people choose to ignore this fact. They would rather play the game and avoid the burden of being, the suffering of the real world, the responsibilities of life. I fear the younger generations are becoming increasingly vulnerable to this form of being, and it is a spiteful form. Once again, I don’t know how you can stop this, technological development seems inevitable with the amount of attraction/money it produces (especially on social media). I think the solution must come from the individual. Make a wise decision, look at the bigger picture. Is this positive progress? We need to start acknowledging the danger of this form of technology and stop buying into the masses games. The positive feedback loop it is creating has no bounds, USE WITH CAUTION!
I’m scared. I truly am. How the fuck are we supposed to parent this shit? It’s just another chapter in the terrifying parenting manual, except this section hasn’t been filled in yet. We have no idea how to handle these problems. That is a major problem! If we don’t know how to parent our kids with this shit, then who does? The barriers between adult and child are breaking down through accessibility. Our kids are too busy with their heads in their phones to see how social interactions work in reality. We are wasting time scrolling through news feeds when we could be doing more insightful activities, that can help guide us through the suffering of life. It seems hopeless. It also kinda seems that the only thing that can save us is the development of some type of technology haha, Paradoxial nature of existence comes into play once again. Got any better ideas? Or perhaps i'm just fearmongering, Idn.
Fin, 0202