Feature
21st Century Digital Boy
by Derek Shaw
I’m a 21st century digital boy, I don’t know how to read, but I’ve got a lot of toys. My daddy’s a lazy middle class intellectual, my mommy’s on Valium and so ineffectual.”
Greg Graffin Ph.D., Bad Religion
PDAs, webcams, blogs, voicemail, instant messaging and file sharing—contemporary tools of trade. Rihanna’s “Umbrella” blares in pestilent ringtone form throughout coffee shops and classrooms. Technology inextricably connects the world while digital bells and whistles overtake more traditional ways of life.
The hi-tech revolution is outgrowing the rate of cultural development as humans compete with the rapid advancement of technology. It’s affecting the way that families co-exist, jobs are performed and relationships are cultivated. Both children and adults are adapting to our changing society, not only for the sake of survival but fashion and status.
Lycett & Dunbar performed a 1999 experiment using mobile phones to monitor the behavior of bar patrons. Fifty-four percent of pub customers were men, 32 percent of whom had a cell phone compared to 13 percent of women. The amount of time the men spent toying with and displaying their phones increased significantly as the number of men relative to women increased, displaying “social network engagement.”
In the workplace, a digital framework has restructured the office dynamic. Bosses no longer walk around from desk to desk and consult with employees. Many professions rely on telecommunication rather than personal collaboration. Meetings are being replaced by E-mails and conference calls. International business deals are sealed without a single handshake.
Co-workers have been reduced to associates behind cubicles rather than collective friends at the water cooler. Many employees appear hard at work when, in fact, they’re using the company computers for online chatting while text messaging under the desk. Reid’s 2004 study found that people who prefer texting to talking on the cell were more socially anxious and lonely.
Business must now cope with constant interruptions, multi-tasking and delegation of responsibility. There is such a widespread dependency on digital devices that those outlets subconsciously become inlets. People now communicate in a shared global network, and consequently it’s easier than ever to keep in touch. That is beneficial in the sense that we can reach anyone, anywhere at anytime. The possibility of direct communication is at our fingertips, and the global network is advantageous to emerging economies and entrepreneurs alike.
The irony is that despite the unity facilitated by technology, many people are detached and secluded to social bubbles. We are creatures of convenience and instant gratification, and there is a far greater expectation of response than ever before. The fact is that everyone carries cell phones everywhere, and that’s always the first place people call. We want things immediately and efficiently at all costs, which often means clicking a key or dialing a number rather than schlepping around to physically interact.
Andrew Monk’s 2004 test involved one-minute conversations around unsuspecting commuters on trains and buses. In half the cases, two actors conversed face-to-face while seated next to a test participant. In the other half, a single actor talked on a mobile phone while seated next to a potential participant. Half of the conversations were conducted at a normal sound level, half were very loud. Cell phone conversations were consistently found to be more noticeable, more intrusive and more annoying than face-to-face talk of the same volume. Even loud conversations were less annoying than softer cell phone calls.
By the mid-late 90s, technology had expanded exponentially with the rising popularity of the Internet. In less than a decade, technology replaced the need to perform basic manual tasks. Humans have become increasingly reliant on gadgets as surrogate laborers; it’s made our society less tolerant, less motivated, more irritable and much lazier. Everyone wants a computer or cell phone that can do it all, rather than searching for new ways to do things for themselves.
The Internet infatuation is contagious, and the dependency on technology is potentially detrimental to our social skills. We’ve become so accustomed to living through computers that communication has been compromised. People around the world are conversing online, but they rarely meet in-person knowing that a quick digital message will suffice.
“Face time is reduced which could have weird impacts on social relationships in the long term as our lives become more dominated by technology,” says Greg Bryant, UCLA Communications Professor. “We’re definitely slaves to the phone and Internet, but in other ways it facilitates intimacy and allows people from all over to organize rapidly and efficiently.”
The World Wide Web is a stage, it’s an open audition and everyone wants a piece of the action. Websites like Facebook and Myspace are useful in that they allow users to reconnect and often meet new people. However, the trend of online dating and social networking can actually make human relations less personal and more mechanical.
The very idea of an autobiographical webpage is self-indulgent and insular: everyone’s a star. Rather than bringing people together, it often creates more tension and distance. Instead of fostering a sense of community involvement and civic responsibility, it merely serves as inflation of the ego, an innately self-promotional vehicle.
Private lives are conducted and fabricated over the Internet, which render our identities quite public and transparent. We become so sucked into that alternate reality that we find difficulty separating our online persona from our genuine selves.
“The Internet provides a sense of anonymity that leads to a reduced feeling of vulnerability and risk,” Bryant comments. “Since there’s more control over one’s side of the interaction and how one’s presented, there’s greater ease of finding others who share specialized interests and values.”
Consequently, people are losing traditional manners and social skills, which are learned behaviors associated with physical interaction. McKenna’s 2002 study had cross-sex pairs meet either in a chat room or face-to-face. Participants liked each other more online and felt they got to know one another better than in -person.
Less eye contact is now made by passersby on the streets, fewer public conversations are randomly sparked up and unfortunately families are also feeling the strain. Computers, video games and other forms of entertainment have replaced the outdoor activities once taken for granted in American culture. Playgrounds, ballgames and beach excursions could become lost pastimes if kids don’t stay active. Children are no longer sheltered from social ills: They are merely a click away from a toxic dose of sexy celebrities, bloody crimes and political scandals.
According to the 2003 Child Trends Databank, “More than three out of four children had access to a computer at home, up from only 15 percent in 1984. Nearly half used the Internet at home, double the percentage who had used it in 1997.” Surely, those figures have only inflated over the past five years.
The indoor generation has been digitally nurtured, and parents don’t seem to mind that their kids are occupied. Youth activities often take place in front of a television or computer screen these days, and that means they usually don’t require rides or supervision. Parents are allowing technology to serve as the babysitter.
Some adults argue that technology bridges the generation gap by allowing them to better relate. Children often have their own cell phones, and parents like the fact that they can contact their kids at all times. But digital communication isn’t a substitute for personal contact. The more we allow technology to do the talking, the greater our social skills diminish. Not only that, but kids are avoiding discussions with their parents—conversations that build relationships, instill values and form bonds.
We are heading toward a culture not bound by feeling, touching and listening but by wires, cords and buttons. Get unglued from the TV, and rip the kids away from the computer for a change. Seek hobbies that everyone can enjoy. Try yoga together or get a family membership to the gym. The need for recreation, especially outdoors, is greater than ever in this concrete culture. Go hiking, biking, camping, walking, whatever…just do something as a unit. It brings everyone closer together, and children’s well-being will improve as parents lead by example and become healthier themselves.
Derek Shaw is a musician, skateboarder and writer. He loves his black Lab Spot, and Spot loves him. Check him and his band out at myspace.com/dovesanddesperados