Effects of technology
A graduation party starts us thinking about teenagers.
Led by our tutoring consultant, we recently attended a High School graduation party. The guests of honor, two girls who were fast friends (and their families likewise) for years, had not been among his students, and the atmosphere of a party is much different from that of a tutoring session, so it gave him a different look at teenagers today. We fell to discussing our observations on the ride back.
The raw material must be very much the same as in our day (and since). There has been no drastic change in physical or mental abilities over the decades, though with the great improvement in health care we’re pretty sure kids today suffer less from diseases and other ailments. A broken bone is no longer the major event it used to be, with plaster cast and all. We noticed the same horseplay and mixed serious-and-facetious interaction that we remembered, as adolescents grow into adults and work out their social skills (with similar rates of success and failure). There was the same variety of inclinations and abilities, the scholarly types and the athletes; similar groups and friendships. We were reminded just how distant we now are from our High School world.
But there are undoubtedly big changes. Leaving aside the differences in society, we can trace several to developments in technology. It is at once much harder and much easier to be alone now. Harder, because one is always within reach of a phone or other device; true solitude is difficult to find. Easier, because it’s a temptation to give all one’s attention to social media or some online activity, and forego in-person interaction.
Kids today don’t read. That’s a great generalization and not strictly true, but we have noticed far fewer who regularly pick up a book for pleasure. This shows in their reading and writing work for school. We trace it to the profusion of other forms of entertainment, videos and whatnot online. Perhaps they are learning different skills or in a different way; certainly a great deal of school teaching is now done by recorded video. And maybe video teaching is indeed reaching a population of students who learn best that way, a population that was missed in our day. But books are still the best way to form certain language skills.
The teenage cultural word is now highly fragmented. Broadcast TV used to be a choice of three stations (with a fourth if you wanted the public TV network); broadcast radio had more stations, but in practice only one or two would cater to teenagers. There was a large shared background, even if much of it was ephemeral and faddish. It’s much harder now to be sure a reference will be understood. On the other hand, diversity and choice are good to have.
One thing our photographer noticed: posing for pictures. It was very hard for him to get a candid shot; as soon as the camera was pointed, everyone put on their “selfie” face and posed. We trace this to the ubiquitous smartphone camera, and the instant result. People (older folks as well as teenagers) are so used to the selfie that it has become the standard image. What must it be like to grow up that way?
