Understanding what it means to grow up in the digital age

After viewing the Netflix Documentary, Lo and Behold, and reading the article from The Atlantic, I found myself being able to easily relate to the content and how it affects us on a daily basis, while living in the digital age. To me living in the digital age is both a blessing and a curse. Having the ability to instantly connect with friends and family makes for simple conversations and keeping in touch with others. However, it can be quite addicting, and it is quite often that I feel like I am out of reach with society when I don’t have access to my phone. As opposed to focusing on both the positives and negatives on living in the digital age, I think for me personally, it would be more important to highlight the negative aspects of living in a lifetime where technology is so easily accessible.
Like the article mentioned, kids my age don’t remember living without internet. I personally had a Facebook account in 7th grade, and that was only because everyone else was doing it. In a sense, the internet was like a fad, similar to when your friend gets a new style of clothes, and then everyone wants to look like him or her, however the “fad” of the internet never faded out. Some memories of growing up in the digital age include, leaving school and telling your friends that you would “see them online later,” which really meant you’d talk to them over a headset while playing a video game. This not only lead to less face to face interaction, but also made it more difficult for other kids to be included.
From Lo and Behold, the documentary focuses on a group of people living in isolation, with no signals, meaning they physically had no access to the internet or phone service even if they tried. What stood out to me was my initial reaction to seeing these people. Because having access to phones and the internet is so common today, I viewed these people as crazy for not using phones, computers or the internet. In reality this group of people was living life the way it was when they were growing up, no internet and no cellphones. Because I grew up with access to all of those things, it was weird to think that my parents grew up as kids living without these things.
Another scene from the documentary that made me think, was when we learned about the family whose daughter passed away in a car crash. Learning about how a first responder took photos of her dead body, resulting it to be unintentionally spread throughout the internet, and how it caused trauma to the family was something that is too common in the digital age. Although bullying was a problem before the rise of the internet, it doesn’t relate to the idea that online, billions of people can be reached, as opposed to the hundreds that may hear of a rumor at school. A quote that stood out to me came from the mother of the deceased daughter, “there is no dignity or respect on the internet because no one is held accountable. It is the truth that is hard to swallow, but with the combination of anonymity online, it is nearly impossible to keep rules in place, which in turn can cause harassment and bullying to occur at levels even harsher than they were before the digital age.
To end my stain of thoughts, I wanted to think about where I see technology in the digital age going in the future. With people like Elon Musk, who we see in the documentary, making the impossible a reality, I think that the digital age will only get stronger. Seeing facts from The Atlantic article, like kids who use X amount of screen time a day are X% more likely to feel sad, makes you wonder how kids being raised now, in the middle of the digital age, will grow up. I think in 10 years from now, things won’t be as different as they are now, maybe even 20 years too, but I do think that the role technology plays on shaping the youth will continue to have a strong impact on how kids are raised, as well as how they act as young adults. Growing up as a member of the digital age didn’t really stand out to me until now, so I am glad I had the chance to watch the documentary as well as read the article, and reflect on how technology, and growing up in this specific time period affected m