“This is the culture you’re raising your kids in. Don’t be surprised if it blows up in your face.”
A quote by Marilyn Manson which made me think about the general relationship between young people and adults. It seems as though so many parents and grown-ups in general; teachers, managers and many other forms of authority are constantly criticising the young people of today for the lifestyle they lead. A major part of this is the youths’ of today’s obsession with technology.
Parents wish children wouldn’t spend all their time on modern day technology, teachers wish teenagers would keep their phones away in classes, doctors wish people wouldn’t overdose on drugs.
The sad reality is that this is the culture of today which we have all learned to understand and accept as the norm. This is the world which parents have brought their children into and of course we can give credit to the many that choose to turn right while the majority go left but, that isn’t enough.
Cultures arise from somewhere. It is a process which takes place overtime carrying on from similar traits of that before it. Each generation leaves behind something for the next whether or not they realise what it is. In this case, the pursuit of happiness in technology.
Personally, I don’t believe that young people have created this life. Instead they are continuing on from what has already been. Adults really have no right to criticize young people, because a child doesn’t wake up one day and decide to begin a life of drugs or a life spent constrained by technology. The bottom line is that the previous generation are the ones who have paved the ground. Our parents are the ones who have taught us. We are simply walking the ground we’ve been set.
There was once a time when humans lived solely in a battle to survive. Working with whatever we had, there was no dire need to create things based on the mere fact that we wanted it. As time went on, morals changed, became weaker. Finally, it got to the point where we no longer courted before marriage, our parents’ opinions simply didn’t matter. We no longer felt the need to share; we had to have more than we needed. We no longer wanted to get to know our neighbours; the idea of trust has been completely erased. We no longer wish to know, ignorance is bliss.Years and years of strong values simply eroded along with our sense of belonging, compassion, consideration.
Everything humane is being pushed to the back and replaced with manmade things such as money and power. This is a world which doesn’t seem to have had much hope from the beginning.
Technology is moving onward and upwards but, this is artificial. Humanity would rather live in a world where we work alongside robots rather than each other. We would rather put our trust in machinery instead of human beings. This cannot last.
It seems to me like the same way we eat out of tins and containers, even though we are aware of the future health risks, is the same way we are pumping all these artificial products into the Earth.
The Earth is the skin of the human body, let’s call it the shell. Inside that shell we have the lungs, kidneys, heart, liver etc. Everything needed for the body to function accordingly. All things natural, oxygen, water, plants, love etc. act as the organs. Now imagine all of these slowly being substituted for artificial substances. It’s only a matter of time before the body begins to reject foreign objects as they are likely to cause harm further down the road.
I feel as though this is what is happening to the world. Call it pessimism, I call it realism.
I don’t aim to attack anyone over the age of 40. Rather this is an acknowledgement of the reality that is our lives today due to the lifestyle of those living in the years leading up to today. Technology isn’t a curse. Afterall, anyone can buy a gun; however, it takes a specific type of person to use it in the right or wrong way. However, I find it difficult to see it as a blessing. Technology has made the world what it is today and that is, in a way, both a positive as well as a negative thing. The sad truth is that it is very difficult as humans to quit while we’re ahead. We may believe that we are in control of technology and, in a way we are. They are our creations afterall. However, what many of us fail to realise is that technology has a massive hold over us too. Not in an iRobot kind of way. I mean this in a psychological way. Soon enough, there will be no use for human beings any longer because technology is on the verge of being able to live independently of us. Once that happens, we will officially be under complete control of objects created by us.
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Sofia Okesanjo
My name is Sofia and i'm a 17 year old girl with a passion for writing. I've been writing ever since I was a child as it has been my way of escaping the negative things in real life which I was unable to change. As a very sensitive and sympathetic person, writing allows me to escape the sadness which goes on in the world but at the same time acknowledge it. My goal is to reach that moment when my words would change the life of somebody because I don't believe that there is a greater gift. Words are the most powerful tools because they have the power to destroy but also to heal. I simply wish to use my words as a voice of reason for the insane.
