Everything is Temporary

Jacob Logiudice
Sep 1, 2018 · 5 min read

Are we victims of our own technological strength?

Generations before us could only imagine the affects that modern day internet would have on the generations who grew up knowing only life with it. Millenials, also known as Gen Y got to enjoy their childhood in a way that is much different than that of a Gen Z. Gen Y ranges from early 1980’s to the mid 1990’s where as Gen Z ranges from the mid 1990’s to early 2000s. The drastic difference between these generations is directly linked to the high use and the supply and demand of the internet. Gen Z grew up only knowing the internet, Jean Twenge calls this generation iGen, “Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet.” Twenge makes a comparison saying that, “Millennial grew up with the web as well, but it wasn’t ever-present in their lives, at hand at all times, day and night.” There are countless examples that show living in this digital age has shown technological advances that seem to make human life that much better. There are also examples that show these technological advances ruining the lives of many people. The only way to analyze it is to see if the good outweighs the bad.

In the documentary, Future Shock, the 1970s by Orson Welles. Orson knew that computers were going to make our lives dramatically faster. What Welles didn’t know was how this faster internet would effect every aspect of most younger and older peoples lives. Twenge states, “Psychologically, however, they (iGen) are more vulnerable than Millennials were: “Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.” The rate of mental health problems has a direct correlation with the amount of screen time that teenagers are spending on their devices. In a world that is stressful enough children are being exposed to problems that adults do not know how to deal with, since the adults never had to live through it. This society likes to place blame directly on the IGen’s but how can they? This is a new world we are living in, uncharted territories and our youth are the ones who are paving the way. This shows the iGens are going to have to keep adapting to this new fast pace world, and the only way to do so is to keep up with fast pace internet and technology.

In the 1970s Orson Welles even knew that if technology kept changing at the rate it was that people would be victims of their own technological strength, and now it is evident that people are suffering from this epidemic. In the film, Lo and Behold, Herzog uses an example of a rehab center in Washington, the people in this center have addictions to the internet. The people here have ruined relationships, their jobs and ultimately their whole lives from being addicted to the internet. One girl talks about how for months she would get lost in her own world where she would sleep for 6 hours then wake up and play online gaming the rest of the day, she was out of touch with reality and had no way of getting back to the real world. This online reality is becoming such a real thing. It is like living another life where in the end you don’t actually end up living at all, it is made to be very addicting and some people pay the price for it.

Jean Twenge says, “Teens, in turn, seem to be content with this homebody arrangement not because they’re so studious, but their social life is lived on their phone. They don’t need to leave home to spend time with their friends”. Social life’s should be “social” as a group socializing together spending time and making memories. This quote remind myself of when I was growing up. I have two younger sisters who are three and four years younger than me. I witnessed it first hand the effects that social media and apps like Kik messasing did to their childhoods, there was an instance where one of my sisters did not hang with her friends all summer and I asked her about it and she said, “we hang out all the time on kik”, I was a little thrown back by this comment. But when you think about it they are just acting the only way they know how. The children are not being anti social they are just being social the only way they know how.

In Herzog’s film he tells us about the advancements of self-driving cars and other technology that is so promising. He tells us that the machine will be perfect and every time it makes a mistake one time then that same mistake will never happen again. This brings him to start thinking about if the internet was to ever shut down. What would happen? Are we going to be victims of our own technological strength? We will have to wait and see.

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