Effects of Media: The Children of Cyberspace

[Explor­ing Life] Brad Stone’s NY Times arti­cle The Chil­dren of Cyber­space raises a num­ber of poignant issues regard­ing our rela­tion­ship with tech­nol­ogy. Herald­ing in a new type of “gen­er­a­tion” by some indi­vid­ual claim­ing “vision­ary” sta­tus seems like an all too com­mon occur­rence in main­stream media now. Appar­ently the so-called “Net Gen­er­a­tion” is now giv­ing way to a so-called “iGen­er­a­tion.” Even though both of these gen­er­a­tions are imag­i­nary fod­der, we still per­sist in reduc­ing vast num­bers of peo­ple to their tech­no­log­i­cal avatar. It is as if McLuhan’s words have never been heard: “Our con­ven­tional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the tech­no­log­i­cal idiot.” There is no pos­si­bil­ity of “immi­grat­ing” to a new (tech­no­log­i­cal) “world” — there is no such thing as a “cit­i­zen” of the web — except, that is, in the minds of the delu­sional.

“Peo­ple two, three or four years apart are hav­ing com­pletely dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences with tech­nol­ogy,” said Lee Rainie, direc­tor of the Pew Research Center’s Inter­net and Amer­i­can Life Project. “Col­lege stu­dents scratch their heads at what their high school sib­lings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger sib­lings. It has sped up gen­er­a­tional dif­fer­ences.”
– The Chil­dren of Cyberspace

How state­ments like this can be viewed as any­thing but less than cred­i­ble is a mys­tery. What really is hap­pen­ing is a belief sys­tem is being man­u­fac­tured under the guise of research and then pro­moted as a fact or real­ity. All it takes is for peo­ple to believe this to be true and it will be, whether it has any basis in real­ity or not. Worse, the pro­posal of inten­si­fy­ing so-called “gen­er­a­tional dif­fer­ence” only serves to pro­mote bound­aries, bor­ders, and walls based on age. This kind of think­ing is not only delu­sional, it is divi­sive and superficial.

One obvi­ous result is that younger gen­er­a­tions are going to have some very pecu­liar and unique expec­ta­tions about the world… And after my 4-year-old niece received the very hot Zhou-Zhou pet ham­ster for Christ­mas, I pointed out that the toy was essen­tially a robot, with some basic obsta­cle avoid­ance skills. She replied matter-of-factly: “It’s not a robot. It’s a pet… These mini-generation gaps are most vis­i­ble in the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and enter­tain­ment choices made by dif­fer­ent age groups.”
– The Chil­dren of Cyberspace

What “gen­er­a­tion” hasn’t had their own out­look and per­spec­tives on the world around them? If that four-year actu­ally equates the toy with being an actual pet then one can only assume an early onset of psy­chosis that requires atten­tion. What is referred to as a “mini-generational gap” is really noth­ing more that a psy­chotic break­down. Worse, have we become so shal­low as human beings that we actu­ally define “gen­er­a­tions” of peo­ple accord­ing to the tech­nol­ogy they use. Worse, are we say­ing that because the tech­nol­ogy exists we are sim­ply help­less vic­tims of it? How much fatal­ism from the so-called media the­o­rists must we endure?

Dr. Rosen said that the newest gen­er­a­tions, unlike their older peers, will expect an instant response from every­one they com­mu­ni­cate with, and won’t have the patience for any­thing less.
– The Chil­dren of Cyberspace

So our youth are going to demand more and more instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion and have less tol­er­ance and patience for any­thing less. And all this because they are using a spe­cific kind of tech­nol­ogy? The impli­ca­tion behind this is clear: we as human beings are so incred­i­bly stu­pid that we can­not even con­trol the seduc­tion of our tech­no­log­i­cal tools? Are our minds so incred­i­bly weak and inef­fec­tual that we can­not seek higher stan­dards of being? Are our addic­tive ten­den­cies so over­whelm­ing that they become our fate?

“They’ll want their teach­ers and pro­fes­sors to respond to them imme­di­ately, and they will expect instan­ta­neous access to every­one, because after all, that is the expe­ri­ence they have grow­ing up,” he said. “They should be just like their older broth­ers and sis­ters, but they are not.”
– The Chil­dren of Cyberspace

If they grow up in the proper envi­ron­ment, then NO they won’t “expect instan­ta­neous access to everyone.”

Dr. Ito said that chil­dren who play these games would see less of a dis­tinc­tion between their online friends and real friends; vir­tu­ally social­iz­ing might be just as ful­fill­ing as a Fri­day night party…

That could give them the poten­tial to be more cre­ative than older gen­er­a­tions…
– The Chil­dren of Cyberspace

Ahem — say what? They might be “more cre­ative than older gen­er­a­tions?” And this delu­sional cre­ativ­ity has some con­nec­tion with the notion of replac­ing real social inter­ac­tion with vir­tual social inter­ac­tion? A con­clu­sion like this is glar­ingly obvi­ous fod­der, yet here it is pre­sented in the New York Times. There is no sub­stance here.

Another bub­bling intra-generational gap, as any mod­ern par­ent knows, is that younger chil­dren tend to be ever more art­ful multitaskers.

Mul­ti­task­ing is noth­ing more than a form of dis­trac­tion that leads to chronic men­tal fatigue. Mul­ti­task­ing is an ill­ness not an abil­ity; it is a sick­ness not a skill. Some­one that is good at mul­ti­task­ing is an indi­vid­ual that suf­fers from an inabil­ity to con­cen­tra­tion and focus.

Mul­ti­task­ing never hap­pens; it is a delu­sion. The way many peo­ple talk about it cre­ates the impres­sion that it is some­thing that actu­ally exists. The human brain is a mas­ter of man­u­fac­tur­ing beliefs that are utterly delusional.

One of the best moments in the arti­cle is:

“I worry that young peo­ple won’t be able to sum­mon the capac­ity to focus and con­cen­trate when they need to,” said Vicky Ride­out, a vice pres­i­dent at the Kaiser Fam­ily Foun­da­tion, which will release a sweep­ing sur­vey on the tech­nol­ogy and media habits of chil­dren and teenagers this month.

This is more than a worry to my think­ing, it is a glar­ingly obvi­ous real­ity. The fault is not with the tech­nol­ogy; the fault is in our ori­en­ta­tion to it. New tech­nolo­gies are often noth­ing more than an oppor­tu­nity to embrace a new addic­tion. That is not to say that new tech­nolo­gies have noth­ing to offer us and we should not be using them. Avoid­ance is just as ridicu­lous and inept. But we need to be smarter. If new tech­nolo­gies are viewed as inten­si­fy­ing the already deeply ingrained habit of attention-deficit dis­or­der, then the answer is to sim­ply stop it — not the use of tech­nol­ogy — the prob­lems asso­ci­ated with it. Any response less than this is mere fatalism.

“If it’s some­thing you grow up with, you have a com­pletely dif­fer­ent com­fort with it than some­one who has had to unlearn some­thing about the world,” said Mr. Rainie, of the Pew project.
– The Chil­dren of Cyberspace

Non­sense. If an adult wishes to learn how to use a new tech­nol­ogy then they will, and in the process “unlearn” or revise their per­spec­tive. We some­how delude our­selves into the notion that youth adopt more read­ily to new tech­nolo­gies than older gen­er­a­tions — this is utter non­sense. I see youth doing trite and super­fi­cial things with new tech­nolo­gies all the time. And whose idea is this any­way? This idea that adults are some­how slower to embrace and adapt to tech­nol­ogy? And why an I sup­posed to believe this is true? I have a dif­fer­ent level of com­fort with my iPod than most youth do sim­ply because I know how to use it more effec­tively than they do.

The arti­cle con­cludes that the “gen­er­a­tional gap” may or may not inten­sify, that is, assum­ing one exists in the first place. It is entirely pos­si­ble these notions of new gen­er­a­tions is a mere delu­sion that makes good fod­der for a main­stream arti­cle, book, or con­sult­ing venture.

They will believe the Kin­dle is the same as a book. And they will all think their par­ents are hope­lessly out of touch.
– The Chil­dren of Cyberspace

If youth come to believe this, then it is only a fault of poor par­ent­ing — noth­ing else.