Communication and conformity….at a cost to Community?
Is the rapid rise of the data mining leading to the demise of individual thought? As we become more connected electronically are we disconnecting at a community level?
Globally connections have become easier, but many feel more isolated.
At a time when Australians can flick between screens to connect with people, products and information from anywhere in the world, are they in danger of disconnecting from their direct communities and tempering their behaviour?
In the current climate, not only will the “revolution not be televised”, it may not get off the ground.
There is a certain arrogance and inevitability of earlier generations to draw comparisons on the lifestyles of later generations, and I am not immune.
As young teenagers we rang each other…we spent hours after school on the home phone over analysing the day’s human interactions with all the drama of a soap opera. Saturday came around and we started the phone chain which started at one member and moved around the group until the plan had been relayed to all involved. After chores complete, where were we meeting?
1pm at Gill’s house to all head to Ripponlea gardens. Parents would know of the meeting at Gill’s, but not that Gill’s mum was not home, we would then all ride our bikes to meet the Xavier boys at the gardens and plot our afternoon of mischief, till we were required home at 6.
Today, this would be an electronic setup that may not even involve speaking to each other or physically facing each other. Instant messages will be exchanged, photos of proposed outfits texted for vetting, parents will be involved and an orchestrated play date, after hours of preening, may take place, after being dropped off.
Or perhaps a gaming session on-line for several hours with no break, no physical meet and no daylight.
Social skills are being lost.
What worries a growing number of advocates are the potential risks of heavy screen exposure, including, they believe, the hastening of autism in the young and attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in older children. [1]
In France they've labelled it “virtual autism” — the idea that if you're raising your child on screens, they're not having social interactions or learning basic social skills.
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