I am part of the "look at me" generation. I would have to say that the computer is causing us to have very poor people skills. If I can talk to my friend online, or watch people through videos on youtube, I do not gain any person to person contact. This will only hinder you later on in the real world, wherebeing able to interact with a person is an important skill. While talking in person I have to be aware of my body language and tone of voice, where as on the computer I can lie completly to someone's face and they would have no "cues" to tell them otherwise. I know that I am addicted to facebook and whenever I go out with friends I spend extra time to get ready. This extra time is to protect me the ridicule I may receive from an unflattering picture being posted. And I have no control over it, and I do not have the power to take down a photo of me.
There are also many positive aspects to being on the computer as well. I can keep in touch with friends in different parts of the world and I have used my facebook account more then once to swap pictures with relatives. It has helped us become closer, and keeps us all up to date on the different adventures in our lives. It also allows me to learn about different cultures and I am able to travel the world without leaving my room.
There are both positive and negative aspects to this generation being so surrounded by technology, but not everyone is being swept up in the falsehood of it all. Some people do use it for good, and are potraying their real self. I guess it is up to ourselves to sort through it all and decide for ourselves.
- 1
- 2
Here’s Looking At You, Kids
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
It's probably too soon to weigh the implication of all this publicization on teens' abilities to have meaningful experiences off-camera. In order to form intimate relationships, they will need to trust each other, and not view friendships and romances—not to mention guarding prisoners—as one more arena for MySpace-worthy performances. But instant trust via a blog or Facebook page can be misleading, says Kate Hellenga, a psychology professor at San Francisco State who has studied intimacy and online behavior. "There's a difference between spewing a lot of 'content' between two people and true knowledge of another person," she says. "There isn't a lot of room for trust and earnestness because of the younger generation's constant awareness of self-presentation." Some young people are aware of this conundrum. Looking at a portrait of himself taken by Dawoud Bey "feels strange because I am trying to extract a private memory from an image that is now public," writes one of Bey's subjects in the foreword to "Class Pictures," a book of photos of high-school kids across the country. It seems contradictory: one thing you can say for the Look at Me's is that they won't suffer the collective amnesia of their boomer elders, who often boast about being too stoned during their youth to remember it. But this generation may have something else in common with boomers: they are so busy documenting their experiences, and being documented, that they may end up with postcards from a trip they have no memory of taking.
© 2008
- 1
- 2
Discuss