What Does it Mean to be a Human During the Digital Age

Almost 11 years after the first IPhone was released we are beginning to see severe repercussions both in our social and mental well being. The article Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation, researches and interviews millennials that have grown up surrounded by these technologies. Athena, a 13-year-old girl, gives insight into what it is like growing up in a digital world, “I have been on my phone more than I’ve been with actual people”. Furthermore, she admits that she often likes her phone more than actual people. But what does this mean for society? Twenge notes that the drastic shifts in teen behavior and emotional stability is unlike anything that has happened before, “I had never seen anything like it”.
The first observation that he addresses is how highly individualistic Millennials are as a generation. He recalls being a teenager and wanting nothing more than to get his license, essentially giving him his freedom. However, this need for freedom has disappeared, “the allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens, who are less likely to leave the house without their parents”. He also acknowledges that teens are waiting to get their licenses because their IPhones satisfy that need for freedom. In Future Shock, there was a scene showing teens huddled in an airport to hang out with their friends. One teen even admits that she spends time there to get away from home, even if she isn’t really going anywhere. This seems completely unrealistic in today’s society. FaceTime, text messaging, and social media offer virtual relationships that subside their loneliness, or at least makes it seem like they are surrounded by people. Twenge again talks about his time as a child and observes that all of the places he once used as an escape are now obsolete, “the roller rink, the basketball court, the town pool, the local necking spot — they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces assessed through apps and the web”.
The movie Lo and Beyond, acknowledges this virtual phenomenon, “the world is a system of ever changing relationships and structures”. Teens are less likely to date than ever before. The need for relationships is now fulfilled by virtual communication because of apps like tinder or bumble. Twengle notes that “only about 56 percent of high school seniors in 2015 went out on dates; for Boomers and Gen Xers, the number was about 85 percent”. Relationships can now be formed before there is any in person interactions between people. ‘Talking’, what Boomers would refer to as liking, can be simply achieved through text messaging or online interactions. While lack of human connectivity has lowered drunk driving, teen pregnancy, and alcohol consumption, it has prolonged adolescence. Childhood is now stretching well into high school.
Because virtual interactions are now a very common form of communication, the time spend online has drastically increased. “The average teen spends about two and a half hours a day on electronic devices”, the affect of this screen time is now starting to show its repercussions. Lo and Behold talks about this increase in the virtual world, especially within Korea, where “people are dying because they are playing on the computer for 40–50–60 hours at a time”. While those numbers may seem drastic, they are not very hard to comprehend. IPhones are apart of people’s daily life, they even sleep with them. In my own life there my IPhone is almost always an arms distance away. However, this constant attraction to our phones is effecting our psychological health, “the more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression” (Twenge, 2017). I believe that this is an extremely strong argument because social media gives both others and yourself the illusion that you are happy, however, it does not portray what is happening in one’s day to day life. Understandably, it only represents the best parts that you wish to show to the world.

Finally, Lo and Behold and Twenge’s article both address the privacy issues that come along with this new digital age. In the beginning of the film, a family of 5 speaks out about their daughter, Nikki’s, death and the disrespect that followed. The mother recalls getting hate mail from strangers online about her daughter’s death and refers to the wave of technology as the ‘new wave of sick curiosity’. Since there are no laws in place for deceased people’s privacy on the internet, there was nothing protecting Nikki and her family. Her mother says a quote that I found to be extremely memorable, “no dignity or respect on the internet because we are not held accountable… the internet is a manifestation of the anti-Christ — of evil itself”. I think that this is important because as new technologies emerge it is hard to regulate what is happening online. Similar to Future Shock’s comparison to the original small handbook with everyone’s address on the internet. Technology expands so rapidly that it is hard to keep up with what is happening online. Twenge also reports that cyberbullying is one of the most prevalent forms of bullying in the teenage world. However, he also acknowledges that there is little control, “social-media companies are of course aware of these problems, and to one degree or another have endeavored to prevent cyberbullying”. While many virtual sites are trying to limit this form of bullying, it is hard to contain with the mass amount of users. Bullying, however, is not the only form of privacy being breached. Lo and Behold interviewed several extremely well known hackers, who revealed just how easy it is to infringe on someone’s privacy online, “people are the weakest link in security not technology”. This lack of knowledge was most evident in the most recent Facebook scandal. While the social network did fall short in protecting its users, many people simply were not taking advantage of the privacy settings, essentially allowing their information to be shared publicly without their knowledge.
The overall theme of these movies and article raised the question, what is the definition of what it means to be human? Do we let technology shape us or do we shape technology? I believe that as technology grows it will begin to shape who we are. Through the younger generations we can see how this change has already started to grab hold.