iConnect: Growing Up Alongside Technology
Being born in the mid 90s to early 2000s posed a completely new experience for parents and children alike. Prior to recent years, parents never had to deal with their children being addicted to technology. It was a privilege to have a computer in the mid 70s to late 80s, when most of our parents were growing up. To be raising a generation of children as copious amounts of new technology emerging from every direction presented difficulties unlike anyone had seen before. Nowadays, children are constantly “plugged in”, creating virtual worlds on websites like Roblox and Minecraft. Instead of neighborhood playdates, children everywhere attend virtual ones. Technology is so advanced that dreams of landing on Mars are no longer a dream, but a very real possibility. It presents the question of whether or not all of this technology is advancing humankind, or if it is becoming so overwhelming that it could be detrimental to all aspects of our overall health.
To simplify things, it helps to look at generations that have been directly affected by the advancements of technology. Gen Z in particular is composed of children born between 1997 and 2012 as predetermined by the American Psychological Association. The older members of Gen Z had a unique childhood compared to other generations. They grew up with minimal technology at their fingertips. They played outside, had the occasional GameBoy and had to rely on themselves and their toys to keep busy. The back end of the generation had iPads before they could talk and grew up socializing in virtual communities. Gen Z in a way grew up alongside technology and as things started to advance, they quickly learned that they had no other option but to keep up with it. Socially, it was always considered “cool” to have the newest iPhone, or the latest model of the Xbox.
Within Gen Z there lies a generation that slightly overlaps with their Millennial counterparts. In an article published in The Atlantic, Jean Twenge describes this generation, born between 1995 and 2012, the iGen. The earliest members of this generation were adolescents when the first model of the iPhone came out.
Being a part of this sub-generation, I can not help but reflect on my own experiences growing up. As the oldest of three kids, I was the guinea pig for my parents. The iPhone came out when I was 9 years old and my parents did not have the fanciest phones. I remember playing Brick Breaker on my mom’s Blackberry that she had for work. My dad had the phone that flipped vertically and horizontally with the changing keypad, and it was by far the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life. In sixth grade, my mom got me the Samsung Intensity, a slide phone, and I was on top of the world.
As my siblings grew up, they got phones in the 4th grade. I was so angry when my now 17 year old sister came home with an iPhone 4. I felt like it wasn’t fair and I had got the short end of the stick. Looking back now, I realize that iPhones were not as prevalent when I was younger. Kids had their flip phones in combination with an iPod Touch and it was very rare that anyone I knew had a smartphone. Not having a smartphone in my younger years helped instill a sense of responsibility in me that I don’t think my sisters ever got to experience. Not to say they aren’t responsible, but they are much more involved in social media than I ever was. They definitely care more about their social media stats (likes, followers, views, etc.) than I ever will. Not to say it is bad, but as a very anxious adolescent, worrying about things like that saved me from a lot of unhealthy thinking habits and body dysmorphia. It also helped to have parents that were willing to educate me and love myself first. Unfortunately, not all kids are as lucky as me.
Social media and growing up during a technology “boom” definitely can have detrimental effects on people. The film Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, explores this when they interview a family regarding the “dark side” technology presents. The family had their late daughter’s mental image completely ruined by an anonymous email containing a picture of their decapitated daughter after a tragic car accident. Technology allowed for the rapid dissemination of the image and forever ruined the lasting image of this family’s daughter.
All in all, although technology advances us in some aspects of society, it does present drawbacks in other aspects. Growing up in the digital age presents a fair amount of hardships, but it also allows us to garner new skill sets and understandings professionally.
