28 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Where Is All the Sad Boy Literature?
I feel like my friends are super good for talking about deeper things and feelings, but every modern technology introduces one way it can go wrong. Discussing on Discord? Someone joins and wants to play a game (understandable). Our availability reduces how much space we give the serious topics. Discussing in person? Getting texts. Discussing in texts? Fucking memes. Particularly reactionary memes from people who don't understand their emotions groping for dopamine *during* the serious conversation.
This isn't a very serious issue for my friend group, but we're Millennials. In grade school we used card catalogs to find books in the library. In middle school we had different favorite search engines. By high school Google had won. T9word before physical keyboards before touch screens. Our lives took shape and found rhythms and we integrated technology into those rhythms.
For the online-native Zoomers and Alpha I have no fucking idea how space can be created to just be fully present face to face talking about difficult issues one on one or in a small group. I think anxiety avoidance has become a kind of art across many generations, but Zoomers and Alpha have new or different things that make them anxious. I'm comfortable making and receiving phone calls (I text first; I'm not a monster). I'm comfortable having a one on one conversation with another man alone or in public. I'm comfortable leading a conversation about a serious topic in a group setting. I'm comfortable confronting my friends and explaining from a philosophical standpoint what they're leaving on the table by engaging in problematic behavior. I'm comfortable shit talking my parents and community leaders and their parents (for specific behaviors, not condemning them as people). I think the social media urge to have a flawless "brand" makes risk tolerance extremely low socially for kids.
Comment by Leatherfield17 at 22/02/2025 at 03:26 UTC
16 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Yeah, I’m a member of Gen Z, and you’re right, technology has a particularly adverse effect on this. To your point about communicating through texting and memes, I distinctly remember times where I would be sitting with my friends in, like, a car in a parking lot somewhere hanging out, and basically everyone is on their phones sharing memes with each other. Y’know, instead of talking like human beings. I was admittedly also part of that at times, but I did get tired of it after a bit. What’s the point of hanging out if you won’t even talk to each other? Looking back on it years later, it was complete absurdity.
Another byproduct of this tech-based socialization in my generation, in my opinion, is a decreased level of empathy and an increased level of self-centeredness and even narcissism. It’s not everyone, but too many people are way too focused on curating their image online and sharing every little moment and detail of their lives. I think this naturally breeds at least some level of outsized self-importance. The ones I find particularly baffling are those who post videos of themselves crying or something like that online. I sincerely cannot fathom how anyone would want to share such a vulnerable moment to the online masses, but maybe that helps them. I don’t know.
I’m admittedly a bit off topic to what the post was about, but OP’s comment just made me think of all this lol