Making Sense of Adolescence: The Youth and Communicating Kindness in a Digital World

Thank You for Sharing (2016) dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit

Prologue

The other day I watched my (little) sister give my father a (big) lecture on his internet branding, business, and overall work life. Later on that same day, I saw a few of my friends expressing their strong opinions on the government on multiple social media platforms. These two moments made me think about a few things, but one question keeps popping up in my head:

Have we always been this bold?

I

In the last few years of my life, I have seen how the younger generation are getting smarter. From high school juniors to elementary kids, these children are hungry for knowledge and they are showing no signs of stopping.

But with their intelligence and curiosity, I noticed something else that stood out as strong: Their urge to express opinions.

With the great amount of social media platforms, comes great responsibility in picking your poison. With many choices to choose from, getting yourself out there only seems like a matter of time. And not rarely there is this notion of:

"When you are not expressing your opinion and saying something about the current matter, then you are out of touch."

This constant broadcasting of self -- or at least from self -- might not seem like a big problem. But when we look further into what might cause it, we can see a myriad of issues, magnified by the world wide web.

Growing up in the digital era, I have experienced how the youth engage with their favorite people on the internet. These new "heroes" -- usually Twitter influencers, or Instagram and YouTube celebrities -- created new movements with one thing in mind: virality. With this new ideal forced into their minds, these teenagers and children force themselves to live up their fantasies of fame.

"After all, why shouldn't I do this? It's only a click of a button away. "

This naive urge for validation makes them jump at every opportunity that arises. Internet arguments, comment section conflicts, and mass humiliation are just some examples of the steps they are willing to take for a handful of internet points. And when a short spike of endorphins are paired with a lack of expertise, knowledge, and empathy, it is a recipe for disaster.

II

One part of the problem is the form of the information that they receive. Algorithm-based and virality-driven information rarely makes room for empathy. Amazing as they are, these new social media with abilities to compact information to a few seconds of video or a few paragraphs can be harmful.

Information in its essence is knowledge of facts. And as social beings we use information to interact with each other. But with the internet, we are exposed to many things all at once. Seeing new stories, new facts, new issues, and a barrage of other new information every single day is now a part of our lives. Big amounts of information pouring to digital spaces --both big and small-- is changing how we communicate with one another.

The human brain is amazing in its ability to adapt to massive amounts of information. But our brains are not perfect. In its strength there is also a weakness that sadly plays a big part in our digital reality. That is the pressure to conform.

Conformity, in simple terms is the pressure to act according to specified standards or custom. In the case of the internet, these standards are set by an authority (in the form of internet personas) or their close group of peers. Without proper regulation and even less curation, these unspoken rules are perpetuated in unsupervised digital spaces, and slowly, into their subconsciousness.

Think of AI machines with the purpose of recognizing human faces, but was only trained with the pictures of a certain ethnicity. What would happen if it is used for other ethnicities? It no longer works. It does not and cannot recognize people from different ethnicities as the same human. Of course, we are more complex than computer programs but we go by the same principles. The less we know about reality, the less we recognize it.

All that with the added sheer force of the internet, the constant exposure to (unhealthy) conversations, and the lack of role models to look up to and learn from means that the only choice for young people is to imitate from the hottest topic of the week, or the biggest guys in the industry. Even if it is at the expense of other people.

This ideal is again and again planted into their minds. Without the willingness to understand their urges, they decrease their ability to read or even care about contexts to only focus on the parts that can be capitalized, the money shot. And when everything fails, they create conflict. Hostility and profanity to everyone and everything. Some won't even go through all the superficiality of "content creation" and go straight to clashing their swords at the sight of other opinions.

Acknowledging the sad reality of our digital environment is the first step in creating a better one. Without ensuring the safety of mainstream internet spaces we also endanger our future in the offline world. If our online selves increasingly reflects how we represent our normal ones, what kind of society would we be?

III

These problems are why digital and media literacy now is at its most important. With the veil of anonymity and no repercussions to our actions, we have only ourselves to stop all the negativity. Being mindful of our words or being conscientious of our motives are not against the idea of being young, but supports it. If being young is about wanting to be listened; learn how to listen. If being young is about being a rebel; then fight the urge to conform, rebel against empty validation at the cost of other people. Like and old Japanese proverb, stand your ground against all the noise.

"The wind howls, but the mountain remains still."

Know that being deliberate in choosing what you are seeing and engaging with are different than closing yourself off from the world.

When in doubt, remember: kindness goes a long way.