Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Instagram, TikTok, all of these platforms that people ranging from Gen X until now used or use to keep in touch with people regardless of how far away they were, but how will that impact the next generations?
Studying Gen. Alpha strictly, and how their parents are parenting them permissively, with school systems that are allowing them to disrespect boundaries, how will that affect their future lives, or even currently?
Before I start my discourse, I would like to define a few terms:
Permissive parenting = parents view themselves as more of a friend than a parent, thus, are not forced to have mature behavior. Instead of guiding them and setting rules and restrictions for their child to follow, they allow their child to figure it out for themselves. They don't discipline their child and expect little of them.
Digital Interpersonal relation = Interpersonal communication constitutes the production, transmission, and interpretation of symbols by relational partners, through the usage of digital platforms.
Empathy = the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another.
With that being said, current generations are indeed glued to their electronic devices, but is it really their fault? In my economy article, namely “Why we feel like we are in a recession but aren’t in one’’ I will detail the economic aspects of the modern family, but additionally, with an adrenaline rush and some educational aspects of it, it is understandable. We do need to realise, however, the permanent effects of this detachment to proper social interaction and how kids growing up with digital norms instead of common sense makes it dangerous for themselves and for the ones around them. Firstly, we are exposing children to the possibility of meeting anyone online, and we do know statistically how often cases of catfishing, grooming or even trafficking happen and how that affects the general public. But what I want to focus more on is how we are seeing a rise in aggressive behaviour and how that leads to catastrophic consequences, such as the school shooting in Serbia or the ones within the US. While these may seem like extreme situations, I do want to make it clear that it is the outcome in most cases where kids are left to sink into the digital loophole, basing all of their social fulfillment in texts and detaching themselves from humanity, ending up with severe lack of communication skills and drained of empathy or understanding of the outside world.
We need to take steps towards building communities and actually taking care of educating and enforcing real life connections before we lose them altogether. And with that will come the downfall of humanity, lacking culture, and education and finding ourselves starting from the beginning. We will see history repeat itself, becoming barbaric whilst pretending to a screen that we may be someone, but who will we be?
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