There are many valid reasons to decry the pervasive influence of digital communications on modern society. Devices are produced with slave and sweat-shop labor. Production creates tons of waste and pollution. Using digital devices over the long-term has dubious effects on our health, from damaging our posture to increasing our risk of brain cancer.
The objection I hear most often, though, is that mobiles, texting, email, and net-based social media have profoundly and negatively altered the way we interact. Profoundly? Quite right. But negatively?
Unless one is seriously advocating a return to pre-industrial society (and good luck with that), defining digital communication in pejorative terms is nonsensical. While there are still a few low-tech pockets of existence where the primary mode of communication is face-to-face, these places are increasingly rare. The high-tech reality that dominates this planet relies on digital communications; we couldn’t do our business – or see to our pleasures – without it.
It’s the younger generations that catch the most flak for their rampant use of digital communications and full-scale engagement with life on-line. And that’s odd, isn’t it? Our children were born into a Digital Age, they have been tasked with surviving in an exponentially expanding virtual reality, yet, they are constantly reamed for embracing that reality and spending too much of their lives in the digital world.
Seems remarkably unfair. Like telling someone they absolutely must learn to swim, but absolutely mustn’t immerse themselves in water. I wish I could come up with a better analogy, something that would strip this ridiculous standard of its clothes and bare its illogic for all to see.
Or maybe it’s not the irrationality of the argument that bugs me. Maybe it’s the hypocrisy.
Us old folks handle digital devices and media with varying levels of skill. Some can’t get the hang of email. Some give Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, and the rest a pass. Others are baffled by Dropbox, haven’t a clue how to program their DVR to record the debates, and couldn’t install Skype on their computer to save their lives.
Yet, most of them have computers. And email accounts. They manage to find, or at least forward, funny YouTube videos and “You Know You’re Old” memes to their friends. And when “the kids” come home to visit, inevitably their youthful expertise is tapped to sort out the email, hook Mum & Dad up on Facebook and Twitter, install Dropbox and Skype, and program the DVR. The older generation expect the younger generation to be digital experts; they just want the youngsters to gain full mastery of the mystical digital universe without spending time in it.
Or – wait. It’s not the time. Work time, study time, productive Puritan-ethic time is fine. It’s the free time spent goofing around on-line that digital communications critics abhor. It’s that they spend too much time on their devices, wasting valuable time on meaningless activities, like texting, or posting, or… (gasp!) playing video games.
Arguments like this drive me stark raving. It’s ok for kids to work their asses off on the grid, but it’s not ok for them to play around on it? Because texting and posting and video games are evil?
As I recall, Rock & Roll was going to rot our brains, corrupt our values, lead us into sin and moral decrepitude, and destroy society as it ruined our lives. Now R&R is the Muzak® we hear in the supermarket, and video games are demonized.
Good people, smart people, tech-savvy people are worried about “the current social tendency to depend on depersonalized digital communication,” as a fan-friend once wrote me (thanks, Dick Smith – beautifully put). The concern is that the skills needed for direct communication will be lost, that the younger generations will no longer be able to express their personal intentions and attitudes clearly and effectively, that they will not even understand the need to do so.
Me, I’m not entirely sure these skills are present in the older generations. In fact, I’m pretty darn sure effective verbal communication has always been uncommon, and that it has been growing steadily more so since oral tradition ceded to the written word. All this hoop-la… is it really about an addiction to digital media undermining the communicative fabric of society? Or is it the same old chorus of “What’s the matter with kids today?” every generation sings?
I don’t usually post on public forums but when Ayesha commands…
Loved your post. I might suggest that being online gives people a false sense of safety and some anonymity. Much less likely to be perceived as “pink monkeys” and torn to pieces by the herd. Or perhaps digital reality has become more real than life. BTL!
In some ways the internet is safer than real life and it does give the established order quite a headache. I find it ironic that the powers that be have the power to shut down the web but are as addicted as any teenager. Shut it down and their entire monetary system crashes. Keeping wealth stored as bits & bytes was not the most intelligent move.
I digress and ramble.
I’ve often wondered about Tracy and glad to hear that he’s still around and making trouble.
Michael! What a champion, letting me twist your arm!
Ooh, good point. I totally agree about the bits & bytes. The mono-reliance of the modern world on flawed, glitchy technology that can be disrupted, corrupted, and crashed is arguably insane. Then again, when has the human race ever hesitated in the face of a technological “advance”? New toy, monkey can’t resist the temptation to play with it.
Yep, Tracy’s around, though he hasn’t yet commented here. Blair stops by here, too, and does comment, when he has something to say. Great place for a virtual Merry-Meet — Neither Here Nor There. ;)
Provocative!
Well, it provoked a comment from you, anyway… ;)
Nice piece. I would suggest to my daughter that she reads it (so she can harangue her dear old Dad) but she can’t actually hear me coz she has her headphones on. Mind you, she also got an A from her English teacher on a recent debating essay. So perhaps the sky is not falling in just yet :-)
Thanks, Dec – and thanks, Tamsyn, for demonstrating my point. With or without headphones teenagers have a hard time hearing their parents, so why blame the headphones? Kids spend gobs of time socializing in virtual communities, yeah? Some get lost there, others have no problem commuting between the two. My prediction: by the time today’s kids are the older generation, VR will be normalized, and their kids will be censured for engaging in whatever it is they do for fun.