Fears for the "Facebook Generation"

Mark Vernon reports (via Medical News Today) on a predictable but still (to me) scary phenomenon: the quick pace and shifting identities of Internet social networking sites are making the "real world boring and unstimulating" to an entire generation weaned on Facebook, MySpace and the like.

Dr. Himanshu Tyagi is quoted as saying that social networking allows for a quick, almost Vulcan mind-meld (see instructional photo below) that's causing an entire generation to develop, and attach meaning to, relationships that we can't recognize and whose sometimes catastrophic effects we aren't addressing. Deprived of sensory information expressed in body language and vocal intonation, and cloaked in relative anonymity, people born after 1990 swim in and out of deep intimacy in a way that doesn't let relationships take root -- but lets emotional wounds penetrate deeply into their fragile, still-forming psyches.

Is this just the fuddy-duddy reaction of the older generation to a shift in social conventions -- or is it something more insidious? Dr. Tyagi ascribes to online social networking a fast-moving and sometimes lethal herd mentality, responsible for, among other things, group suicides. On the other hand, as Vernon notes, Dr. Tyagi himself is the founder of an online professional network with more than 60,000 subscribers.

I'm relieved that Gabe doesn't go in for this stuff. At a time when his friends are beginning to text and IM compulsively, he's indifferent at best. "If they really want to talk to me," he said recently, "they'll see me in school tomorrow." Does this put him at a social disadvantage (not that he'd care)? How does a misanthrope maintain his fragile misanthropy in an age of cell phones, instant messages and online networking?

What do you think: are we building ourselves a Matrix of social mirages? Or are we just doing the same old thing in a new way? Do we legislate limits? Monitor and restrict our kids' ability to network in this way? Isn't this little more than peeing on a forest fire?

--T.A.

Comments

[Outis]

Dude, misanthropy is even easier in an age of cell phones, IMs and the like. Those damned people won't ever leave me alone now, AND I've got to constantly listen to them chattering away to imaginary friends in public places. Misanthropy won't go out of style until there are no more people.

[david]

Outis, thanks for visiting.

Do I really want to be left alone, I wonder? Or do I want all this crap, and all these noisy people, around so I can indulge my misanthropy?

[RW Rogers]

Not sure about the answers, but Gabe sure sounds like he is very "well-centered."

[wj]

Outis is very right on one point: misanthropy is becoming easier. These folks who are spending all their time on cell phones amd IM and texting will just ignore anyone who doesn't participate. Which means we can ignore them in return with a lot less effort than it used to take to avoid interacting with people who were actually paying attention to the world (and people) around them.

As for what to do with our own kids, I think just dragging them (kicking and screaming, no doubt) away from their toys now and again will be a good start. And just think: now there is an alternative punishment to "go to bed without dinner": "no cell phone or Internet until tomorrow!" There's something that would grab a kid's attention.

[karen]

I think instantly of my two oldest kids- 16&15- who are forever texting. Esp my 16yr old daughter. Her damned cell phone is never still- always vibrating. It is impossible for her to do anything w/out it: homework, conversation, work. THAT'S what scares me about the constant need of them; there's no silence for thinking, anymore. It drives me bonkers(their Dad got them cell phones, btw. I guess it's a good idea.)

OTOH, they don't seem to have ~imaginary~ friends that talk to them, like i do!! I'm carrying on daily to my ~physically present~ friends& family and am, for the most part- ignored as making stuff up, like- the legitimacy of anything i say gotten from *here* is questionable. It's like living in parallel worlds. I can't give up my friends here because i love them(you).

It's weird, isn't it? I remember telling Amba about how personal everything seems in blogs- so much sharing of feelings, opinions, info. It kinda freaked me out. It must be a sign of the times that i accept it as ~normal~, now. :0).

I love my blog friends.