This blog post on the effects of “growing up connected” on child development sent chills through my body: not those of fear but of realization.
I’ve focused so hard on how new technologies provide opportunities (implicitly to humans thinking roughly the same way they have for millenia) that I hadn’t thought much about the way these same technologies can fundamentally change the way we think. The bevy of creativity we now see is not just the enabling of old ideas with new technology; its the enabling of new kinds of thinking by new technology.
The generation just younger than us likely experiences some modes of thought unfathomable to us, but let’s examine something closer to home: those modes of thought we employ that are likely unfathomable to our parents.
Example 1: Extending the Social Network
For instance, consider your parents’ likely conception of their social network. Co-workers are those they have lunch with at work. Neighbors are those they bump into while walking the dog. High school classmates are memories. People are tied to places and times.
Now (at the risk of generalizing my own experience too broadly) consider your own conception of your social network. You regularly Facebook your high school friends about college rivalries. You text your foreign friends to tell them about the great new ethnic restaurant you find nearby. You often email articles to an ad-hoc group of individuals you met in various places and at various times in your life who have a shared interest in some niche topic such as the digital overthrow of the university system. Interactions transcend place and time. Your social network is ever-present and pervasive.
What effects has this had? For starters, I wager our generation has a higher social awareness and is more likely to see people of different backgrounds, countries, and time periods as a single community. This kind of thinking is rocket fuel for two great social movements: (1) the so-called “green revolution” and (2) the rise in social entrepreneurship projects meant to extend high qualities of life to developing nations. Both movements require extending one’s social network to groups that, traditionally, past generations felt no obligation to: other countries and other generations.
Example 2: Dissolving Ownership and the Rise of Sharing
Now consider your parents’ conception of ownership. It centers around the generational goal of independence – financial independence, transportation independence, etc. Your parents moved to the suburbs, bought their own houses, bought their own cars, and measured success in number of things owned. Ownership was a measure of independence and independence was the goal.
Now consider your conception of ownership. It’s almost nonexistent. Independence is no longer the goal. Car-sharing and public transport are socially acceptable (and cheaper). Renting and sharing living space is a great way to stay connected with friends. Urban living is a great way to tap into the infinite social and cultural opportunities that arise when millions of people are placed in close proximity. More importantly, music, books, and information at large are to be shared, not owned. You blog your opinions and ideas, share your reviews of local restaurants, and even broadcast the mundane details of your life via Twitter. Information no longer belongs to anyone and no one would want it to anyways. To make a computer analogy, our parents are ran on home processors. We run on the power of the cloud.
What’s Next?
So what about that generation just younger than you and I? What fundamental shifts in their thinking have or will occur? I won’t even attempt to predict that right now, but I guarantee the difference between them and us will be even more drastic than that between us and our parents.
Tags: culture · neuroscience · psychology2 Comments
2 responses so far ↓
In terms of the younger generation, let me conjecture a bit-
They have grown up with myspace/facebook as an intimate part of their social identities. Having their pictures posted, wall posts, and custom wallpapers as markers of their personality certainly influenced their conceptions of their social world. Those like my brother who is now 15 has been using myspace for 3 years, since 12, a key period in social development. This integral communication tool no doubt helped connect people in many ways.
A pitfall that the younger generation faces as a result of these technological developments is as follows:
These internet based social organizations are detached from reality to a certain degree. They are a shared virtual space of conceptions about the social fabric of our society. It is very easy for myths and illusions about the social world to propagate themselves on a medium in which there is no way to verify the truths that people are presenting about themselves and the social world. The these internet social tools allow an assumption to become a truth in the minds of those involved.
For example-Someone writes on their profile page what their interests are, lets say:
“Laughing, walking on beach, hooking up with boys, Twilight.”
OR (for a guy)
“Basketball, Lil Wayne, Halo3, chillin”
Those reading this have no way of knowing what motivated such comments and whether or not they are true—because people display what they want other people to see. Ignored are the quirkier sides of people’s personality that they are afraid to show. And those reading these profiles have no way of knowing if this is true. Consider if you have a circle of 5 girls and every one of them shares an interest, or, more subtle, a picture or wallpaper that is the same. Then, new friends will perceive this similarity across the group and ASSUME “oh, this must be the way it is”. Yet, if we assume that on myspace and facebook, people are not entirely forthcoming about who they really are, then illusory norms circulate through social circles like wildfire, therein becoming a norm, whether the group is aware of it or not.
Moreover….
The manipulation of one’s image for the purpose of gaining friends is learned at an earlier age as a result of these applications. And this social awareness, while in some ways an aspect of intelligence—-Is part of what is crushing us, humanity, at this time. People are terrified to express their true feelings in public, to display who they really are and what they REALLY think. And perhaps in Victorian England that is understandable. But now…is time to break out of that old box and move on. And I see that this technology may be add a layer of socialization that further entrenches everyone in a limited set of stereotypes, which they will then be condemned to acting out for the rest of their middle school, high school careers, therein stunting other forms of development.
I went out on a limb there but I hope the point was made clear
Fairman
I’d like to write my own post about this, but I’ll start off by responding to yours. First, I don’t believe we’re facing more than one fundamental shift. Instead, it’s one big change (powered by the advent of the machine) that then, in turn, facilitates incremental shifts that happen quicker and quicker. I mean, the abstract I’ve seen for both media and education is that we’re shifting from one-to-many to many-to-many. The difference between generations, instead, is one of how many years they’ve lived with the fundamental shift. I remember Clay Shirky commenting at one point on the amount of “stuff” that he’s had to unlearn in order to do the research and teaching that he’s doing today. Along all of these layers there are going to be different microcultures (i.e. the 15 year olds will be creating and spreading their own memes, just like the 21 year olds are, but the difference will be partially precipitated by the difference in life experiences with the net. I mean, this shit just gets trippy sometimes).
The point of Pesce’s piece, however, was a bit different in my opinion, and this is where I’m not quite sure of my thoughts. First, he correctly identifies that to be a digital citizen is far different than the 20th century of a citizen. His proposed solution, however, is to gradually increase access to the net, all the while teaching (or imposing?) 20th century values on students. In fact, in his mind I think there still is a vision of a hierarchical relationship between the teacher and the student which I’m not sold that is the case. I seem to be hopping from industry to industry every several months, and the playing field is being flattened at the moment.
Question to ponder: if you could be given access to all of the world’s information at age 5, would that be a good thing or bad thing?