My Gener8shun

I don't worry too much about how technology changes me.  It is entirely incomprehensible to me how I lived without certain pieces of technology that I take for granted today.  Clearly though, I did.  There are those, however, who do seem to be worrying a great deal about the changes that technology has or will supposedly render in a society.  I don't want to bang too hard around this particular article; there are many just like it out there, and Mr. Bauerlein has a book to sell on the subject and I certainly won't fault him for pushing its premise.  There is room for argument and discussion here, though, so I have a few things to crank away about. 

  The first is the style of the argument itself.  Every form of technology that has ever been foisted upon the world has negative side effects--unintended consequences of making our lives easier in some way.  And while it is true that that which makes our life easier robs us of some challenge from which a lesson might have been gleaned, most new technologies engage us in new challenges, with often the same or similar lessons bestowed.  To rail against new technologies is to nearly guarantee oneself a place among the many forecasters who have proclaimed the end of the world because of this or that technology.  Like Mr. Bauerlein, most of these prognosticators come to the argument with feelings and perceptions of something being lost or destroyed, and assume that this is necessarily a bad thing.  Change can be a good thing, even if it is painful in its process.  

Second, and related to the first, is the use of a lot of numbers that are by themselves impressive and interesting but alone or together are indicative of nothing other than the ubiquity of the technology.  Yes, it is impressive that a child can text 3,000 times in a month.  Well, when you say 3,000 in one month, that's impressive.  But then, that includes text messages received as well, so maybe he really only sent 1500.  And that's spread out over thirty days.  Assuming a very modest 10 hours a day for texting, that's just 5 texts sent an hour.  It's a lot of texting, but it doesn't really boggle the mind when I put it that way.  The truth of the matter is that there are no facts here.  There is no evidence that texting is destroying our youth.  There is a lot of very compelling evidence that teenagers like to text.  Also that they like to eat junk food, consume alcohol, drive cars, and have unprotected sex.  All things likely to get them into trouble faster than texting.  

Finally, the whole thing smacks of a general condescension that even at the age of 26, well outside the crosshairs the author has on today's teens, I take umbrage with his premise that today's kids are just plain dumb:

These form a horizon of adolescent triumphs and set the knowledge of history, civics, religion, fine art and foreign affairs beyond the pale of useful and relevant acquisitions. If a sophomore sat down on a bus with the gang and said, “Hey, did you see the editorial on school funding in The Times this morning?” the rest would scrunch up their faces as if an alien being sat among them.

Were I only 16 years old when I had read this, my first and likely only reaction would have been, "Go fuck yourself."  Now I'd like to think that in ten years I have matured enough that such obscenities would not so lightly leave my mouth, but the truth of that matter is that if Mr. Bauerlein really believes that teenagers today have no desire to learn, no cultural radar, and no seething (if untutored) need to communicate about the politics and morality that impacts their lives, then he really ought to sojourn and self-fornicate.  

Text messages and cell phones are not turning the youth of this country (or any other, I'd wager) into unthinking zombies devoid of empathy and maturity.  It is changing how they interact--with each other and their elders.  I don't begrudge Mr. Bauerlein the perception that this change is destructive.  It's certainly destructive of even the way we did things when I was in High School.  But to suggest that new social norms are inherently bad and that the "old way" was better--particularly when one cites no real evidence of this--is a lot like standing on your front porch and yelling, "You damned kids!  Get off my lawn!"