Digital degradation: Gen Z serves as a smartphone idol

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Created to serve man, a smartphone turns into an idol on which our lives and destiny depend The first reaction to these rarities will seem amusing to many - children begin to press on the dial with their fingers, trying to dial a number.

But there is nothing funny about this, a new generation is born and lives with smartphones, and it is they who have become the main instrument of dramatic change in society. Experts call this leap in development revolutionary, in its effect comparable to the emergence of writing. Through the prism of a smartphone display, we perceive this world differently, otherwise we form, we communicate. Deficit of attention, clip thinking, impulsive decision making, physical inactivity, shopaholism, self-isolation are the fruits of this revolution.

But these same technologies free us from routine, provide more opportunities, broaden our horizons, and help us in our studies and work. Humanity has stepped onto a new stage of evolution, but isn't it becoming a slave to its new toy? About how gadgets have influenced the development of personality and society, "Profile" discusses with experts - psychologists and educators. This text, by the way, like most of the journal's publications, is now called a longread. “Too many letters,” one of the readers will say. And thus confirms one of the postulates: modern man has begun to read less. Is it really?

The tribe is young, unfamiliar

Any revolutionary technology has always become a kind of mania for the new generation, notes clinical psychologist, children's neuropsychologist Mikhail Vladimirsky. “The boys of the 1920s were obsessed with radio addiction, assembling detector receivers and catching distant radio stations,” he says. - In the 80s, Russian children wrote programs for the Electronica calculator, and Western ones for simple Sinclair and Atari computers. But now society is changing faster than ever, and the smartphone has become the driving force behind these changes. Digital technologies are transforming the whole society, and children, as the most flexible and adaptive part of it, are changing faster and stronger.

The so-called generation Z (born after 1995), executive director of the Institute of Practical Psychology and Psychoanalysis, Vera Lisitsina, and head of the clinical psychology department of the institute, Narina Tevosyan, are called "an unfamiliar tribe". Previously, the transition between generations was soft and almost imperceptible, experts say. But Z-children are strikingly different from Y-children (born after 1981). The modern ones first take a gadget in their hands and only then - a pen for writing, for them modern technologies are not a new reality, but everyday life.

Entertainment and educational games, cartoons, fairy tales, foreign language courses for toddlers - what many smartphone applications do not offer for little users! But excessive enthusiasm for them can form an erroneous idea of reality in a child, psychologist Tatyana Poritskaya warns. “The little man studies the world with his hands, he has visual-active thinking,” she says. - It is very important that he has the opportunity to touch, play with real toys, study real objects. It helps to develop tactile sensations, gives the correct idea of the world, what to expect from it. When a child examines a two-dimensional image on the screen of a tablet or smartphone, his visual system works and develops to a lesser extent than when his eye examines a three-dimensional object in the real world, confirms Anastasia Vorobieva, senior researcher at the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Children "chat" with each other, while they often do not see or hear their interlocutors. This affects their skill of "recognizing non-verbal communication," the expert says. These are facial expressions, gestures, intonation. Hence, problems often arise in mutual understanding, in establishing effective relationships with others. It is also important how the smartphone affects the parent-child relationship, notes Mikhail Vladimirsky. “A child spends time with a personal gadget at the expense of precious family interactions,” he explains. - And if mom, dad, brothers and sisters are each immersed in their smartphone, we get isolation, loneliness within the family, the formation of normal attachments in the child is disturbed. A person grows up more lonely."

The negative consequences of prolonged, excessive use of gadgets, listed by Vera Lisitsina and Narina Tevosyan, are so many that it becomes uncomfortable. So, in children, vision and posture deteriorate, the spine may bend. Monotonous finger movements on the screen lead to wrist pathology (sprains and tendon problems). Impaired coordination between brain signals and hand movements is not excluded. In addition, many hours of "sticking" in a smartphone limits physical activity, and hence overweight and obesity.

Deficiency of live communication inhibits the formation of new neural connections, reduces the level of concentration, memory, mental activity. Excessive passion for computer games reduces the level of empathy, sympathy, provokes cruelty, and reduces sensitivity to violence. “All of the above leads to the development of a high degree of social anxiety,” the experts concluded. The uncontrolled use of gadgets leads to the fact that the channels of perception are narrowed to a "small screen", a person artificially places himself in a "narrow, virtual corridor", depriving him of the opportunity to feel all the diversity and beauty of the outside world.

The knowledge revolution

Smartphones help preschool children develop fine motor skills, but they also inhibit the development of speech, Mikhail Vladimirsky draws attention. The school, in theory, should solve the problem of socialization, because children actively communicate with each other, with teachers. However, here, too, gadgets play an important role. The growing dependence on smartphones, self-isolation, the formation of fragmented thinking in children have led to the fact that smartphones were banned in primary and secondary schools in France. In part, this restriction also applies in the UK, Belgium, USA and Denmark. According to a poll by VTsIOM, 73% of Russians are in favor of introducing similar measures in our country. But so far, gadgets are not officially banned - only in some schools (and even then, as a rule, in elementary grades), children put their smartphones in special boxes before starting classes.

Generation Z graduated from high school and enters universities. Its fundamental difference from previous generations is its total online presence, notes the candidate of pedagogical sciences, associate professor of the PRUE. Plekhanov Dmitry Enygin. “They regularly, even during classes, check social networks, watch new videos from famous bloggers at breaks and comment on them,” the expert says.

Associate Professor of the Department of Journalism, Oryol State University named after Turgenev Andrei Dmitrovsky recalls that 10 years ago, when asked who has at least three or four paper textbooks, 30–40% of students answered in the affirmative. “Today, almost no one has them,” he says.“The maximum is several electronic versions downloaded from the Internet.” If some source of information is not digitized, it is unlikely that it will be read by students, confirms Anastasia Vorobyova. The problem is also, the expert adds, that with all the abundance of information on the Internet, students are not always able to separate high-quality sources from low-quality ones, they have difficulty, if necessary, combine information from several sources and analyze it.

In addition, according to the observations of Andrei Dmitrovsky, each new set of students becomes less and less spontaneous in behavior: they have less and less personal core and more "social programming." “The 'stupidity' and romantic actions have practically sunk into oblivion, because the 'best friend' of a teenager - the Network - provides ready-made solutions and recipes for all life's challenges and crises,” the expert says. Students' behavior is built according to ready-made patterns and templates. “Applicants-journalists are not able to write a text more difficult than a note, they have difficulty with analytical thinking, competent speech and formulating their own opinion,” he adds. In addition, according to the expert, students are less interested in contests, grants, scientific conferences, and job search in most cases is postponed until final exams.

"Who owns the information, he owns the world" - this catch phrase of the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty is morally outdated. Now the main thing is the ability to discard unnecessary information, notes Mikhail Vladimirsky, to distinguish important from unimportant, reliable from unreliable. And a good memory has also ceased to be considered a valuable human ability, because knowledge is available anytime, anywhere, as soon as you take your smartphone out of your pocket. Unless you have to sweat reading before the exam. “This change in the style of cognition is a revolution comparable to the appearance of writing, the first convenient version of a person's external memory,” says the expert. "Like any revolution, it generates fear and reaction, a striking example of which is the book" The Dumbest Generation "and many similar articles, studies, monographs."

Reading evolution

The abundance of information and its sources, numerous electronic carriers of this information take up a lot of attention resources. They have formed clip thinking in a modern person - a fragmented and chaotic perception of data. This became the opposite of the systems thinking that the traditional text formed in humans. Now people have begun to read less, says Mikhail Vladimirsky. More precisely, with the reduction in the number of printed books, newspapers and magazines, they are gradually losing the culture of "deep" reading, adds Andrei Dmitrovsky.

The way of reading has also changed. Nobody can master the same longread if its author does not catch the attention of readers from the very first lines. The process of reading a paper medium is linear - from beginning to end, explains Anastasia Vorobyova, an electronic medium is read nonlinearly. Text on the Web is often hyperlinked to other texts and videos. Distracted by them, the reader will go further and further and, most likely, will not return to the original material.

Indeed, most are guided by short texts and videos, and many will even prefer a bright picture with a short caption. But you cannot learn anything in this way. Therefore, says Tatiana Poritskaya, the situation changes if a person is especially interested in something. Perhaps he will start with something short and superficial, but then he will read more and more deeply into the topic, looking for new articles and books through the same hyperlinks or in search engines.

Man is a friend of a smartphone

People not only began to read less, they began to think less, Vera Lisitsina and Narina Tevosyan are worried. Control over human consciousness on the Web is one of the most terrible modern phenomena, they believe: everything is designed mainly for people to fork out for the purchase of this or that content, product, service. “People are taught to think and analyze less,” experts say. “In addition, all these“likes”on social networks lead not only to the development of narcissism, but also to depression.”

A pocket device is the main means of communication, entertainment, shopping, payment, dating, information retrieval, orientation in unfamiliar terrain. For a person, it has become the third most important channel of interaction with the world after physical reality and loved ones. But a smartphone can become an impetus for the formation of addiction to social networks, text communication, online dating, erotic chats, gambling addiction, shopaholism. Then, warns

Mikhail Vladimirsky, your gadget in the value system can take the second most important place, or even become the main one. “The world of such a person is arranged in such a way that the most valuable thing in it is accessible only through a gadget,” says the expert.

And the virtual world is designed in such a way that it gives the user exactly what he wants to see and can buy. “We are subscribed to channels of interest. We are in communities of like-minded people. Even if it's just a Facebook page, artificial intelligence is gradually shaping the flow of information in accordance with our “likes”, says the psychologist. -

We are becoming less and less likely to come across an opinion that does not support our existing beliefs. We live in a comfortable world where everything confirms our innocence. And such functions of human communities as defining group norms and boundaries, nominating leaders, determining the status of group members, and many others, have largely begun to be carried out on digital online platforms, via the phone.

There seems to be not a single important aspect of life in which the smartphone does not play a key role. Moreover, each time this role is double - that of an evil, then of a good genius. And in this the experts are unanimous. Smartphones have helped us get faster, but not smarter.

And memory got worse not only in children. “About 15 years ago, everyone remembered at least three to five telephone numbers,” says Nikolai Molchanov. - Now there is no. If the information is a couple of clicks away, the meaning of memorizing it disappears. We stop remembering not only data related to the professional field or general erudition, but also personal information."

Tatiana Poritskaya is sure of the opposite: smartphones make their owner careless and dependent. Total surveillance of users, a transparent social online environment that excludes privacy, “gently and imperceptibly lead to total conformism, the absence of independent thought,” worries Mikhail Vladimirsky. The future is unknown, and only the variety of ideas born by people independently of each other allows finding solutions to new unforeseen problems of mankind, the expert is sure.

But, as you can see, the impact of smartphones on a person, the revolutionary changes that these technologies have made in his mind, cause ambiguous assessments. This means that the independence of thought has not yet been lost, and the person remains the master of the situation. Wait a minute though. And what do you feel when you are forced to stay without a smartphone for a couple of days? Or has this never happened to you?