For my childhood and well
into my twenties, I could not make friends.
A large part of it no
doubt had to do with my being on the spectrum or whatever they were calling it
in the 1990s. But let’s not kid ourselves. Trying to become a friend no matter
who you are is difficult. It takes a lot of emotional and psychological energy
to make the effort to try and reach out to a person and risk any kind of
rejection and that can cause you physical pain. At least that’s what it felt
like for me, and I believe it’s universal.
Well into my twenties
being able to make the effort to talk a stranger outside a classroom setting
was something that far too often paralyzed me with fear. I had an easier time
then, and still do today, talking with my elders than my peers. During college
when most teenagers are learning how to be independent, I was socially standing
still. My college experience was wonderful in many ways; learning how to
socialize was not one of them. I left college with the same number of friends I
had when I was matriculating – none.
When I graduated I kept
trying to find ways to force socialization on myself. I went to many continuing
education courses, hoping to find people who I was intellectually closer too. None
of the connections lasted beyond the length of the course. I went to book clubs
at my local library, readings at bookstores, forced myself to go to social
gatherings of relative strangers. I was lonelier than ever. It was not until I
turned twenty-five and I found a group designed for people on the spectrum that
I finally began to make friends – and even here, it was wrenching and difficult
every step of the way.
During the 2000s, as we
all know the internet and social media were on the rise. But at no point when I
struggling to make friends in person did I ever consider trying to use any of
the assets that hundreds of millions ended up doing. Perhaps it was just the
aspect of my personality which has fought against almost every technological
improvement in the 21st century, but I always believed there was
something incredibly fraudulent about the idea of it. In my opinion trying to
make a human connection shouldn’t be as easy as logging into a website. That
opinion has never changed.
I have never logged on,
much less followed, anybody on Twitter or Instagram. I have no desire to look
at anything or anybody on TikTok. I will used LinkedIn in order to try and find
jobs online (that’s never worked for me, but that’s a story for another day)
but I’ve never considered trying to reach out to someone there. I only use
Facebook to post my articles online. Occasionally I will comment on the site of
a few rare people who I have respect for. Those have never included my actual
friends, who if I have something to say about their work I will call and
tell them.
I think its pretty clear
that I was ahead of the curve when it came to just how utterly destructive and
isolating social media is for the world at large. Yes, I know I use medium to
post my stories on a near daily basis but this is out of necessity rather then
desire. For better or worse, sites like these are among the only ways to reach vast
numbers of readers, and I’m inclined to think, based on what I read in the
comments and section and what happens when disagreements occur to these points
of view, that it’s definitely for worse.
But I don’t walk to talk
about that so much as the effect it has had on the generation that does not
know a world without it. Because we’ve been seeing the effects on our society
for a while and it’s not just apparent on the Internet.
I’ve long theorized that
while advances in technology might make aspects of live more convenient, they
are not necessarily improvements. There is always a cost with the next leap
forward. And I think a lot of the problems in our society are because of the
generation that has been raised entirely in a world where the Internet makes
everything available.
Box office for movies and
ratings for TV shows have been plummeting for a decade. Many blame the former
on the rise of superhero films and the latter because of streaming but neither is
the whole story. When an entire generation is raised that they can see anything
at their convenience if they just wait a few minutes, what reason do they have to go to a movie or watch a TV
show with anybody? Convenience has always trumped work throughout the march of
time, and now we have an entire generation growing up without needing to do the
kinds of things a previous generation did. Ratings for sports and other live
events have similarly been dropping for the past decade. This is logical too
but not entirely do convenience. Indeed, fewer and fewer teenagers are participating
in sports at all.
I might be exaggerating
the effect of social media on this but it might well be a factor. Social media’s
main value seems to be that it brings you human contact without having to
actually bother to make contact with humans. You can hang out with a group of friends
without leaving your home. So if its that easy, why bother to go to a movie or
watch TV or do anything actually together?
Many might want to blame
this on Covid but it’s been going on long before we all had to shelter in
place. They might also want to blame it on the rise of partisan politics or
culture wars but that’s a symptom, not the disease. Social media is the disease.
It always has been, but particularly when it comes to trying be social.
Because being a child and
a teenage is hard. It always has been and always will be. The difference is for
the past twenty years, you now have an alternative to going outside and trying
to make contact with people your own age or hanging out with friends after
school or anything else. I don’t blame them, it’s horrible growing up and online
seems easier. But a social profile on line is not having friends in the way I
consider it.
A friend does not agree
with you a hundred percent of the time. At most, they agree with you fifty or
sixty percent. They do not like everything you do, indeed there may be several
things that you like they utterly loathe. They will tell you when you’re doing
something right and just as often when you are making a fool of yourself. When
you need them to do something for you without question, they’ll do it and you’ll
do the same if they ask. A friend is someone who will do something with you
even if they hate it and if they don’t enjoy it, will tell you as much afterwards.
A friend is a learning experience.
I think it is telling that
social media, with the exception of Facebook, calls the people who you know on
it, followers. Because let’s not kind ourselves: getting to a point where you
can make a friend like the one I describe takes a lot of effort and can be
painful much of the way. By contrast, someone who likes your tweet, follows you
on Instagram and says a two word statement of support on anything else, gives
you the illusion of being a friend without even having to bother to meet
them.
There are many things that
trouble me about social media but the most troubling by far is how so many of
Generation Z have grown up devoted to the cult of it and are frantic about the
number of ‘followers’ they have on every single post. They are so desperate to
be liked and loved that they think an applause sign on a social media site is
that love when it costs that person absolutely nothing and they may never look
at it again afterwards. Just as troubling are the blind comments of support
from total strangers that this generation far too often counts more than the
people they actually know.
Honestly I always have a
mixed reaction when I learn someone on Medium is ‘following’ me. I like it when
they read my articles, I like it when they comment approvingly, I even like it
when they say they hate my comments. But I really wish that there were another
word – “subscriber’ or ‘viewer’ would suit me better. Every time I learn someone
is following me, part of me wonders: “Am I developing a cult?”
Because that’s what most,
if not all of social media is: a group of cults. I have to tell you every time
I read an article on this blog arguing that people are sheep and I get to the
bottom and I inevitably see the line asking for someone to ‘follow’ them, I
really wonder if the writer is aware of the irony. If it were a gathering of minds
to debate subjects of interest, I’d be fine with it. But so many of the columns
on this blog – particularly the political ones – are written by people who want
to be told that everything they say is true, that what they do is perfect and
do not want their bubble punctured. This is troubling no matter what group is
doing. But an entire generation that knows nothing but that bothers me far
more.
So when you hear a New
York Times poll that says only 54 percent of Gen Z believes democracy is the
best form of government, it’s both chilling and the natural result of an entire
generation raised on social media. Democracy is about building coalitions of
people who don’t necessarily agree, finding a way to live with those who disagree
entirely with you, about building a society where everybody’s point of view is
not only equal but is treated with respect, and getting together to do the work
that needs to be done, even and especially if it’s difficult When an entire generation grows up where the
major force in their life is something entirely about being part of an isolated
community, where doing something with someone is too much worker and where you can
just unfollow people who disagree with you – and perhaps most importantly, when
your self-esteem is often built on how many virtual strangers follow you than
actual people you personally know - then
of course they think democracy isn’t the best form of government.
Yes much of it has to do
with today’s political atmosphere, the rise of cable news, and eternal gridlock
but the major problem is also this: democracy, when it works perfectly well, is
boring. That’s always been its strength but when you have an entire generation
that only has the attention span of the next clip on TikTok, then they would
have no room for deep policy discussion. I honestly think even were it not for
the rise of Trump and his fellow populists, this current generation would still
have the same indifference to politics and democracy. It’s not exciting or thrilling,
and it moves at a glacial pace. This generation can’t wait a week for the next
episode of their favorite TV series.
Now I won’t pretend this
is the only reason for so many of the problems the most recent generation has
with today’s society: indeed, I’m going to be writing a long series on college
that will give some context as to part of the problem. But the fact that so many
of today’s generation are angry at everyone’s who come before them for their
problems and seem less compelled to do the work to try and fix it, it has to be
due to the fact that so many of them would rather spend time sending messages saying
OK Boomer than actually have a conversation with one. The world is in a
horrible state right now.. Only through the slow, intricate work of human
connection is there the slightest of chances. A hashtag will not save it.
No comments:
Post a Comment