Month: September 2019

 

 

As I sit here, in front of my laptop, reading an article about technology ruining a generation, I can’t help but feel guilty. Why? Because I can relate to many of the distressing symptoms that characterize smartphone and social media addiction. My phone has become an extension of me, constantly in my hand, on my desk, in my pocket—somewhere in my vicinity for immediate checking if need be. If it is not on my person, I feel an anxiety, an emptiness, incomparable to any other feeling I’ve ever known. I even feel it vibrate in my pocket when it’s not there. And it’s not just me, it’s my whole generation that has become dependent on a tiny rectangle that holds their main means of looking out into the outside world. Modern technology is the agent of change that drives the paradigm shift that we have seen among today’s young people. 

A paradigm is defined to be “an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype.” Defining paradigm shifts, Thomas Kuhn called them revolutions where “one conceptual world view is replaced by another”. In the past, the world appeared narrower, in present time, before our eyes. Gradually, we gained more knowledge: television, the internet, e-mails. It culminated in an “intellectually violent revolution.” Now, we have instantaneous information from anywhere in the world at any given time right at our fingertips. The world has become less about experiencing and more about being in the constant know. While this endows owners of technology with massive power, it also burdens them with unnecessary responsibility and stress. Now, we see the world in likes on Instagram, in friends on Snapchat, in tweet characters.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet, perhaps, the paradigm is not so much the world as it is the young people. The archetypical teenager in the last century spent more time with their friends and family, was more independent, and spent plenty of time out of the house being rebellious. Now, everyone pictures young people on a sofa, shutters drawn, watching Netflix while they scroll through Instagram. The change is great, and it is irreversible. I feel close to people through text and Snapchatting. And when I do spend time in person with them, it is difficult for me to refrain from documenting our time together on social media. I mindlessly scroll through Instagram when I have even an ounce of free time. And, as Twenge mentions in the article, it causes severe fear-of-missing-out or FOMO. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt my stomach dip in disappointment because my other people are out having fun without me. Older generations did not have to bear the burden of the smartphone.  

While I cannot say that I am depressed or have ever thought about suicide, I can testify that it has become a commonplace of my generation. Mental health has been on the decline for years now. While some say that less stigma around mental health has resulted in more young people opening up about it recently, thus inflating mental illness rates, technology does feed into these numbers. An overload of information constantly places young people under pressure and crushes their spirits at the same time. Constantly being conscious of ourselves and others, and of our social relations, turns us into egocentric, secluded creatures that can spend hours upon hours in front of a screen. The rise of smartphones can be considered a paradigm shift because it has twisted our childhoods and our teenage-years and turned them technology-centric, driving us to become the worst versions of ourselves at times.  

The #metoo movement has taken social media and mainline news by storm. Fired up by a string of sexual assault accusations against comedian and actor Harvey Weinstein, women everywhere took the victims’ sides and emerged as survivors of abuse. They too, they announced on twitter and on the streets, had endured mistreatment by men, particularly in the workplace. The movement gained traction through celebrity endorsements, and even reached the attention of the U.S. President himself. The feminists of the #metoo movement unified behind  a group of women to create solidarity for victims and to protest sexual harassment.

The poster held by the protester argues that there shouldn’t be stigma behind sexual assault because so many women experience it, and that men should not downplay that experience or try to excuse themselves from it when they are the culprits.

The #metoo movement is particularly suited for in-depth analysis because it reflects the state of our modern society, and will likely make it on the pages of future history textbooks. I am fascinated by how contradictory modern day is. On the one hand, #metoo shows how much progress still needs to be made, and it polarizes audiences on controversial issues. But on the other hand, it shows how far modern movements (Black Lives Matter, gun safety, etc…) have come in expressing their ideas and in mobilizing masses of people to join their causes, particularly by incorporating social media. The juxtaposition of stagnation and progress, and that of unity and division, are at the cornerstone of the age we live in, and, in my opinion, nothing represents them quite as well as the #metoo protests.

“No means no,” and “Me too!” have become persuasive tropes that shape the movement’s message and people’s response to it. They are a call for unity, demanding that women come together over their victimhood and take on the shared enterprise of protest. Another appeal of the feminist protests lies in their timing: right after a string of high-profile sexual abuse accusations and in the midst of a myriad of other movements. These accusations are the external proofs for the message of the Me Too movement; The witness statements are direct evidence from legal proceedings that convinces the receivers of the message that time and tolerance for sexual assault is, indeed, up.

The ideology shared by the protesters is one that the feminist movement has been fighting for decades: women are equal to men and deserve to have their bodies respected. Their language, attitude, and the power they share when they band together as a movement is an intrinsic proof that their message is worth propagating for a better world.

 

 

 

 

 

When will society learn that women can do the same things that men can?

I mean, really. I realize that a bumper sticker is not the ultimate medium for a serious, developed, mature viewpoint. However, the sole fact that such an artifact exists, and that someone might want to sport it on the back of their car reveals many things about society’s unspoken assumptions.

The most blatantly obvious ideology exposed by this sticker is that men are “handy” and women are not. Handiness and manliness are inherently intertwined: a man who cannot, say, name the parts of a car or fix things around the house is implicitly (or explicitly) considered lesser of a man by others.  From a young age, boys have this ideal pushed onto them by getting toy cars and tools as gifts. It is just one piece of the large puzzle that is toxic masculinity. Though it may not seem it upon first glance, this bumper sticker is telling every man out there that if they do not know how to change the oil of a car (or do any other technical task), they are failing civilization.

This assumption carries over to women, who are placed within their own gender confines by society. Presumably, women do not know how to do technical or hands-on tasks. They are not supposed to. While my boy counterparts played with plastic hammers when we were children, I played with fake food in a toy kitchen. Girls are placed in the stereotypical role of pristine, nurturing housewife. Additionally, this role assumes that they are not as smart or as capable as boys and that they need their assistance to survive.

Frankly, the logical argument behind this sticker is not only fallacious but based on gender roles and assumptions that are changing by the day in our modern society. It seems whoever bought this bumper sticker is stuck in the days of the nuclear family and the good American housewife. It’s 2019 people, let’s open our eyes to the myriad of possibilities that are laid out before us, regardless of our prescribed genders.

 

 

We are deeply affected by it, yet we fail to notice its imminence: global warming. The state of the Earth is worsening every single day, but we only notice the effects of our environmental disregard through anecdotes on the media or through abstract data covered on detached scientific reports. People, thus, dismiss the issue with the wave of a hand because it does not affect them directly. But climate change is real, it is here, and it is a threat to all of us. The Natural Resources Defense Council organized a Climate March on September 21st, 2014- two days before a world leader UN Climate Summit- as a response to this threat. Their advertisement instills a sense of urgency in all who rest eyes upon it, asserting that change must occur now in order to save the Earth.

The NRDC’s advertisement turns New York into an eerie flood plain, reminiscent of the setting of Noah’s ark and of many other apocalypse stories that have been popularized as movies or books. It is likely that the audience of this advertisement, while waiting for their subway or while walking down the sidewalk, related their current life in New York to what it could become: an apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by the sea. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the oceans will rise between 10 and 30 inches by 2100. But the NRDC offers an alternative, namely, to march for stopping global warming “now” instead of “[swimming] later.”

Not only is the setting a rhetorical appeal to action, but the woman in the advertisement is, too. She sports a business suit and a professional bun that pin her as a stereotypical New York businesswoman who may have once overlooked an advertisement for climate change activism while hurrying down the street to her next meeting. The NRDC places her smack in the middle of the turbulent waters, conveying the message that her inaction ultimately rendered her efforts at a more successful life futile. The organization encourages its audience to put the Earth first today so that we may get to bask in our hard-earned success tomorrow.

The futility of the woman’s solitary efforts motivates me the most to unite and make a change. She holds up a lonely sign that begs to “stop climate change,” though the water rising up to her waist shows that it is, clearly, too late. However, it is not too late for all of us who are staring at the advertisement, flabbergasted. Right now is an appropriate time to take action. And the efforts don’t have to be- nay, should not be solitary. The urgent message conveyed by the NRDC is that the only way that we can change everything is if we get everyone, right now.