‘It adds even more pressure and complication when 24/7 social media makes the word go round instantaneously – a mistake, an error, a scandal – and the person in the middle of it feels like it’s the whole world laughing at him.’
IT’S a common topic of discussion these days among the “elderly” (meaning the members of the Baby Boomers generation that includes me!): are we nurturing a generation of weaklings?
Fairly or unfairly, over the last year or two (or three), news coverage and social media reports of young ones “opting out” by ending their lives as a result of some emotional problem have shaped the image of their generation as “weak.” Whether it’s due to a failed subject, a failed romantic relationship, or something amiss at the workplace, an impression has shaped (in my mind at least) that today’s teens while potentially far more creative than my generation at their age is far more brittle, sensitive or fragile compared to my peers when we were teens.
We had romantic heartbreaks, too, subjects in school we had to take twice (Math was always a subject I loved so much I had to take it three times) and bosses and professors who would chew us out and make us feel really small. But! But few of us ever took our lives or even thought about it; we just soldiered on and eventually left behind us all of those bumps on our stumbles along whatever path to the future we were taking.
Why have we come to this point?
An officemate, a Millennial who has GenZ siblings and GenAlpha nieces, tried to explain to an old geezer like me why he thought this was so.
One of the reasons, he says, that GenZs are this way is because almost everything is so convenient and quick and always available that they get impatient very quickly if things don’t happen at the flick of a finger. The world is now a 24/7 reality: you can travel anywhere around the world within a day, find a place to eat any time of day, send or receive money or messages the whole day, listen to the news or stream a movie. So when things are not as instant as instant noodles, impatience sets in. Disappointment. Even anger. The thought bubble could very well be: “This is not how things should be. The world is moving on without me.”
It adds even more pressure and complication when 24/7 social media makes the word go round instantaneously – a mistake, an error, a scandal – and the person in the middle of it feels like it’s the whole world laughing at him. Or, just as bad, ignoring him.
The ignoring bit I also find interesting. I’ve seen countless kids, even of the GenAlpha generation, who are as frisky as I was, but who are dealt with by being handed a gadget. “Here – entertain yourself.” Now imagine the implications – not only is the child allowed to enter the wonderfully scary world that the internet gives access to, he is also denied the coaching or calming words of a parent or guardian who is satisfied that he has “calmed down.” Oh well, I have my friends and followers online and it is in interacting with them that I will find the warmth and acceptance I seek. Which is okay until it is no longer okay when that warmth and acceptance disappear and the young one feels ignored and abandoned – not just by friends, mind you. By the whole world.
So why wouldn’t a young man or woman, feeling spurned by the world, not indeed seek to exit that world that no longer finds him interesting or of any value?
I kept nodding my head, listening to my colleague try to educate me on the whys and wherefores of young people old enough to be my nephews and nieces and even grandkids. And while I did get many of the points he was making, I still couldn’t make out what, if any, could be done to help the young ones cope with a world that is far more complex and that moves far more quickly than the world I was growing up in when I was their age.
The genie is out of the bottle when it comes to social media and the Internet, and now AI is poised to be an even bigger complication.
Maybe it’s not for my generation to figure this out; it’s just my generation’s role to worry and to lament and to be alarmed. But just as we figured out the world turned over to us by the “pre-war” generation, so will the GenAlphans figure out that the world that their GenX parents and GenZ siblings will be turning over to them.
Weaklings? Only time will tell!
