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Meme Courtesy the Internet |
In reviewing the
definite impact technology is having on our youth, our minds can easily become
fixated on the negatives because of how prevalent they are. Sexting, virtual
sex, streaming pornography and the easy ability to meet strangers online are
all new realities made possible by the technology era.
Yet technology brings
positives as well. Remote and online education programs are typically more
flexible and more feasible. The large availability of data from various
resources leads to more comprehensive research and more conclusive findings.
The exposure to
different cultures and ways of thinking leads to greater tolerance and there
are countless income generating opportunities for young writers, programmers
and online entrepreneurs.
Let us look at the
different facets of a teenager’s life and consider technology’s influence and
try to identify the picture that is developing.
Home & Family
Children are now
requesting laptops, tablets, cell phones and video games at younger ages and
the increasing sales of these devices every Christmas shows that their parents
are listening.
However children are not
the only ones affected. Technology has changed the way of living and working
for parents. Thanks to the internet and the many mobile platforms, parents can
easily work from home. While this is still highly romanticized and touted as
giving parents ‘more time at home with the kids’, what it really translates into
is parents who are always working at home.
Even when not working, parents
may tend to recreate online, visiting social media sites or playing online
games.
What this means is that many people who share a home, very
rarely share quality time together. Each person is plugged into their own
device.
“Alone Together” is a
phenomenon that psychoanalyst Sherry Turkle explores in her book of the same
name and she discusses among several things, the sense of community and
connection people now derive and expect from technology while expecting less
from each other in person.
School & Education
For a long time the book
was synonymous with education. That is no longer so. The nails on the coffin for
books were firmly secured the minute the advanced search engine was created. Spending
hours poring through the pages of various texts is simply archaic and a waste
of time.
To make matters worse
for the book lovers, the search engine’s results are also not only limited to
text. Videos provide visual instruction and present opportunities to easily
learn new skills without attending a course or institution of learning.
Education providers
therefore are forced to change with the times and provide more visually
stimulating computerized environments to engage young minds.
What this means or rather strongly suggests is that the brains
of the young have been rewired somewhat. The old linear, sequential manner of
processing information as is encouraged by book reading has been retired. Emphasis
is now placed on information gathering skills which focus on how to skim large
quantities of data from multiple sources and retrieve what is pertinent. Memory
retention is also not as important as critical analysis.
Technology writer, Nicholas
Carr has greatly supported this notion in his book “The Shallows: What the
Internet Is Doing to Our Brains”. He states:
“...the argument is that online activities—surfing, searching,
jumping from e-mail to text—actually change the nature of the brain. The more
time we spend online, the more we are incapable of quiet reverie, not because
of habits of mind but because of a rewiring of our circuitry.”
Pop Culture and Celebrity Stardom
The effects on this may
still be downplayed by a media that does not yet wish to lose their venerated
cash cows in Hollywood. However it stands to reason that the ability for anyone
to become a star by posting a YouTube video displaying their talent will affect
the perception of stardom.
Fullscreen, Inc. is a
company which helps to finance videos for young creators, from any part of the
world. According to their CEO, George Strompolos, any teenager with a web
camera who can connect with an audience can become a millionaire and they have
helped to create several. These internet stars, which are generally unknown to
those over the age of 30, have their own substantial fan base and following and
they can come from any part of the world.
What this means is that firmly rooted into the psyche of the new emerging youth culture is that you don’t need to go to New York or Hollywood to become famous. Literally anyone from anywhere can be a star.
Money and Careers
Online entrepreneurship
is booming and even among the young. Almost anyone who has access to a computer
can create a blog and again once the content is engaging, once a niche market
can be found, money can be made. There’s also money in selling photography, web
programming, affiliate marketing, virtual outsourcing to brick and mortar
companies and of course these skills can be acquired – online!
What this means is the traditional way of making money,
following the path of school, college and ‘5 day a week’ job is being booted
out along with books. Anyone can make a lot of money at any age and from
anywhere.
Views on Politics
For many people,
religion and politics are hallmarks of what define you as an individual and are
what gives you a sense of stability and belonging within a community. However a
young person’s community is no longer just the people he physically meets in
his neighbourhood at church, temple or mosque but rather anyone
in cyberspace who share his interests.
In times past,
governments attempted to control people’s thinking by controlling the media.
Technology has severely compromised this control because for example, it is hard
to gobble up the sensational media coverage of terrorism when video footage of serene
images pop up for a region reportedly under bomb and gun fire.
2011 is recorded in
history as the year of major social media organized uprisings. Facebook,
Twitter and YouTube all played roles in the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt,
Libya, Syria and Bahrain as well as the Occupy Movements in the United States. Quite
worthy of mention is the sharing of lessons learnt between the different
activist groups such as when Tunisian Facebook users advised their Egyptian
peers to ‘Put vinegar or onion under your
scarf for tear gas’.
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Image courtesy: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Essam_Sharaf |
The London rioters used another
telecommunications channel - the Blackberry Messenger service.
What this means is that young people are aware of the potential that technology
offers and have been exposed to the power it can wield to influence political
events. Various governments have responded by limiting and controlling internet
usage and have even at times blocked cell phone connectivity. This response
however has only pushed the younger innovative minds to go underground as there
are talks of a new ‘off-the-grid’ network.
Views on Religion and God
I am from the Caribbean and most everyone I know
attends church, mosque or temple and practice some fundamental religion but yet
here I am belonging to the Light Body Travelers community, exploring energy
work and practising meditation. I may not belong to the age bracket defined by
William May when he introduced our focus on Youth Culture but I can see how the
expansion of my views was partially affected by technology.
It is relatively hard to simply accept that those who don’t believe in God the way you do are doomed to hell’s fire when you have the opportunity to meet and interact with so many different people across various cultures.
The internet also provides easy accessibility to
many holy books and teachings online, and discussion forums where one can be
exposed to different dissecting views.
What this means is that young people have a unique opportunity
to develop more comprehensive world views and are abandoning old dogmas and
prejudices. Consider Will Smith’s children who are reading quantum physics and books
such as “The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life”.
In fact I believe that religion
is slowly but surely being replaced by a more all-inclusive, earth conscious
spirituality.
Views on Love
The children growing up in smart
homes and heavily computerized environments are also the children of an
alarmingly growing percentage of divorced parents. For many of those whose
parents are still together, they watch them argue and fight and spend little to
no time having meaningful interactions. And these are people who fell in love
after growing up in the same neighbourhood
or attending the same college.
On the other hand, these young
people go online and can find someone they can connect with. This person shares
similar world views and likes the same things they do. Thanks to video calling
capabilities, they can see each other and fall in love from half way across the
world.
For many, the hours spent texting
and chatting long distance strengthens their sense of a soul connection and
their belief in a ‘one true soul-mate’ or twin flame. The reality however is
sometimes painfully disastrous.
What this means
is that young people no longer see themselves as limited to only finding love
or casual friendships in their physical location. Some of these ‘too good to be
true’ relationships unfortunately are exactly that, which means that there is also
a growing dissatisfaction with love regardless of where is found. They yearn
for something deeper, something more real, truer even. Something connected to
spirit perhaps?
So What Does This All Mean?
There are many articles
that speak to the real psychological problems of depression and narcissism
among young people who feel the need to constantly check how many likes their
latest ‘selfie’ photo has garnered. Cyber-bullying has been directly linked to
some teenage suicides and suicide attempts, and online sexual predators do prey
on the gullible young.
However there are those
who hold more optimistic views as far as technology and the young are concerned.
Carr believes that there is an ‘incipient Net backlash’ which will be led by
the idealistic young. Blogger Manel Blanco adds a spiritual element and sees the internet as ‘a platform in
which we can create energetic webs’ that can help to raise consciousness. My
view embraces these two.
I believe that a
consciousness revolution is imminent and its rumblings are already
starting. I believe that this
consciousness revolution will look a lot like Adam Bucko’s and Matthew Fox’s Occupy Spirituality and I believe that it will eventually lead to us discarding the
internet. We simply won’t need it, not when telepathy, soul travel, acute
intuition and psychic abilities all become available to us at higher levels of
consciousness.
The off grid network
that people currently seek has always existed and technology is nothing but a
prelude to all this. We have arrived at the ‘the technological simulation of
consciousness’ that Marshall McLuhan spoke of and it is only a matter of time
before we recognize that the simulation is nothing but a poor imitation.
I believe too that it is
the young - the ones who recognise the archaic uselessness of our current systems;
the ones who are breaking down mental, religious and financial barriers; the
ones whose brains are being trained for higher analytical thinking; the ones who
have felt the pinch of being ‘together and yet alone’ and who are looking for a
love that is real and spiritual - will be the ones leading the way.
What do you think?
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Image courtesy: http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/book-review-occupy-spirituality |
As originally submitted to Spiritualist International Magazine for their Youth Culture focus under the title - 'How Technology is Shaping Youth Culture'. Apologies to all those who had problems accessing it on their site. Their techies are busy working to resolve the Chrome compatibility issues!
Love, light & blessings,
Elizabeth Energy
Very interesting. How would you respond to a critic who might claim that no mass revolution is likely precisely because of the internet's tendency to disperse thought, focus and discourse in multiple directions?
ReplyDeleteEven with the multiplicity of conversation topics, there is an underlying feeling of frustration, of being fed up, of getting tired with government propaganda - that underlying notion, feeling, sensation is the unifying factor!
ReplyDelete