Tidbit No. 22
“The kids in ‘Frontrunners’ are the leading edge of what’s being called the millennials — the cohort born after 1982 — but you might call them the Look at Me Generation. Thanks to ‘The Real World,’ ‘Laguna Beach’ and the like, they’ve been documented like no group before them, most especially my themselves: on their blogs, their MySpace, Facebook and Flickr pages, and on YouTube …
But are we seeing real people, or personas? …
Sociologists have begun to question the effect of all the exhibitionism on young people. Can they form durable identities off camera, or are they so used to producing their images for outside consumption that images have replaced essences? Will a generation for whom all secrets are fair game and every private moment can become public trust each other and form intimate relationships?”
“Here’s Looking at You, Kids” By Jennie Yabroff, Newsweek, March 24, 2008
Wow, what an interesting thought… that I’m sharing in the blogosphere, thereby making my private thoughts public and exposing my personality/persona. Seriously though, the author brings up some valid considerations about the effect of life on camera, considerations it would take years to prove as fact and only paragraphs to hypothesize about.
Let’s face it. Every aging generation sees some new trend in youth that will wreck havock, soil souls, bring civilized society to its knees and END THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT! And somehow, we keep on keeping on. We’re just resilient that way. We grow, we adapt, we change. IMHO, any attempt to value such generational adaptation and change as good or evil is thin ice, reliant upon our own generation’s thought processes and values. Remember, television didn’t make us go blind and boys who play too many video games still have social lives — even with women… most the time. 
If there’s anything to be done, it’s create articles like this to spark conversations and get people, including the youth in question, thinking about technology’s effect. That and the tried-and-true advice that transcends generations, that actually means something over time: Kids, be careful out there.
Tidbits |