They are isolated and connected, with lots of relationships going on in social platforms, but with great difficulties interacting with reality.
Should adults pity them? Philosophy and neuroscience tell us that we should pay attention to several aspects.
On the one hand, information that is being received constantly is excessive, stops being useful. Memory because unnecessary and substituted by Internet.
Addiction replaces the critical spirit and it is being assumed that everything that appears on the digital world is what needs to be done. In that way, each one of us sets goals incessantly, but, because time and money are sufficient, guilt emerges for not reaching those goals. It’s the exploitation of oneself. A tired society due to a tired self.
There’s awareness surrounding our alimentary habits, but people don’t pay attention to the fact we nurture our brain 24/7 without a break. That produces an autonomous narrative of the mind that doesn’t stop. We eat while thinking of other things, we look without seeing, and we sleep without resting. Ideas jump from topic to topic like a sparrow that jumps from branch to branch, with no control, even when there’s someone else trying to say something. The reflexive analysis of reality is replaced by the echo of oneself.
On the other hand, there’s the topic of privacy because everything is registered somewhere on the Internet. Photos, videos, personal data, websites that have been visited, films that have been watched, groups in social media, money spent and what the person consumes. This can generate problems in the future.
A person could be rejected at work due to his or her digital footprint or even pay a more expensive insurance because maybe the person’s clinic history is online, so they know that the person had or will have a disease.
In the person’s adulthood he or she can be criticized for posting pictures in the person’s adolescence, consuming alcogol and excesses or maybve due to an opinion posted in social media when the person was young and unconscious of the impact social media may have on the person’s reputation.
If the person watches a movie or surfs the web, he’ll receive similar information because there’s an algorithm that detects likes and inclinations. They get to know your economic life and consumption inclinations because every information will be available just one click away.
When the person walks on the street, he’ll be completely filmed and everyone will know what he has done, who has he visited and his likes in tourism. He’ll be inhabitant of the transparency because everthing shall be known and the feeling of being watched will increase, just as if there wasn’t any room for intimacy.
The person will go from being a citizen who chooses his representatives to be a subject who is chosen to be oriented to vote or think in a certain way.
In the twentieth century, there were thinkers like Orwell and Huxley who warned about a controlled society. Today we read philosophers like Byung Chul Han, who say that we give our data to control us and generate permanent anxiety. Children who are projects, adults constantly working and a tired society.
It is possible that someone ignores these issues because they seem abstract, but we need to read what philosophers have to say because they usually anticipate what happens. Much of what they say is happening, and the debate already has an economic and social importance.
There is no doubt that the technological revolution has allowed us to generate great advances in the world and its contribution to the development of society has been fundamental, but we should think of consensual public policies, because we are in the presence of a massive risk, especially for children and for the future of the country.