There appears to be a trend among humans in our history. Older generations seem to think that the younger generation does things completely wrong. It likely has stemmed from the rapid change in our culture and technologies. When things are so different from our own experiences, we tend to see them as bad and inferior. Makes sense. 

This leads us to typically write off the criticism from our elders in the same way. They’re just out of touch and outdated we say. And again, it makes sense. Their experiences were so different from our own, why would they understand? 

Yet this pattern of thinking has led us to fall into a state of denial about our current generations’ futures. Get off that damn phone our elders say, but we just write them off as not getting it. The difference today is, the changes in technology have completely changed the fundamentals of development in children. 

The development and consumption of media for and by extremely young and undeveloped humans has moved from trusted and centralized sources to the more decentralized internet. Never before have children had access to content and media that is so wildly unverified and thought out.

Would you let your child spend hours a day with a complete stranger? No? Then why on earth would you let them binge watch that youtuber? It’s not the same thing some may say, but at a core it is. 

Children are extremely socially impressionable. They are this way by ‘design’. Children are best suited at rapidly absorbing the social norms and other cultural aspects from their peers and elders. Generally speaking, this is great. It’s a big part of what makes us human. But as the old adage says, shit in, shit out. 

If we let our children absorb the habits, language, models of thinking, and what is socially acceptable from untrusted and unmonitored sources, what will our next generation become? Moreover, if these sources become increasingly simple with less and less depth, how will this affect the brains and thinking of our youth? 

As my parents liked to tell me, being bored is good for you. And to an extent they’re correct. Now, instead of boredom creating room for the imaginative and creative thoughts typically characterized by childlike wonder, children are filling that void with low quality and surface

Let me explain what I mean. Here is a screenshot from a popular snap ‘story’. Essentially a brief form of media designed to entertain and “inform” the individual. The direct quote is “After Euphoria’s super successful second season, Sydney Sweeney is taking a mini vacay in Hawaii to get some well-deserved rest. Hollywood’s latest it-girl rocked an adorable floral print bikini for peak spring break vibes and we’re truly obsessed. 

Tabloids and celebrity news have been around for ages, but this has reached a new low. This entire paragraph could’ve been summed up in one sentence: Euphoria star is in Hawaii. The authors of this content have found new and creative ways of saying absolutely nothing in the longest way possible.

Combine this with the change of audience from older more developed humans to young and impressionable children and we have a clear problem on our hands. This is just one slide of many in this snapchat story. If I was a child, and ingesting this content on a daily, and in some cases, hourly basis, what the fuck does this do to my internal sense of what is important? 

What does this do to their ability to think critically? This all fits in with the rise of media giants like TikTok and instagram. All of which are designed to feed the user short form content with little to no ‘depth’. 

This topic has been written to death. Many question the direction technology has taken the media and the overuse of this technology. Yet I worry we don’t focus enough on how this impacts our youth specifically. They are now subjected to this ‘content’ daily and are quickly developing habits and expectations of how they should spend their time. We’ve replaced stories and books with clickbait and shallow content. 

The stakes are as high as ever and the choices are becoming harder. If we continue on this path, we will surely be left with a zombie-like generation of humans, who only know how to absorb surface level trivial content with no meaning and completely lacks the skills required to make meaning of stories and events.