Growing up today is so much different than growing up when our parents did, and I’m sure they felt the same way when they were teenagers too. The thing is that we are growing up with something that no generation has ever before.
No generation has ever had to deal with the pressures or the stresses that come along with this obsession that faces, not only our generation but, everyone today. Technology has fueled so much drama, so much hate, so many unnecessary fights and disagreements and my generation grew up with the evolution of it all.
From the iPod Shuffle to the iPod Touch, from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 6s, from every upgraded iPad and MacBook, to Apple watches and everything in between, my generation has been there through it all. We’ve upgraded and upgraded, going bigger and better - for no other reason than to show off this advanced technology to our friends and spend countless hours of our days scrolling away.
It started with Facebook, then Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and every other app that came after - that I’m most likely oblivious to now. When Facebook first launched way back when, we would spend hours reading our friends pointless updates about their everyday life and even more hours making our own. Then Twitter started and tweeting seemed more acceptable than posting a Facebook status about everything, so many of us moved on from our Facebook ways. With everyone being able to tweet about everything and freely speak their mind, drama soon followed when people started to argue with others behind the platform of social media.
We hid behind our phones and computers and started fights that never went anywhere but on a screen. We had so many horrible things to say to one another when we were online, but when it came to confronting someone in person, we were at a loss for words. Words have always hurt people, I am sure of that, but saying hateful things online that are visible by the whole world can be devastating to any person. When the connotation is unknown and one is free to interpret a tweet or a message anyway they please, it can be dangerous. No one ever wants to be attacked on social media and publicly humiliated like that, but it is so common and it can be so hard to avoid.
What I want my parents and other parents with teenagers today to know is that, while you can protect your child from so many horrible things in this world, you can’t protect us from technology. It’s dangerous and evil, as many of us have seen before online and on the news. You can try your hardest to warn us to stay off of social media or certain websites, you can tell us not to get involved in the drama that’s going on with our friends online all you want, but it won’t do any good. You can even wait to buy us phones until we’re 16, but the sad thing is that we will still find a way to be a part of this generation that is overly obsessed with technology.
No matter how hard you try to understand it, there will always be that gap that exists. Until you grow up with it all first-hand, you won’t understand. We learned it, we lived it, and now we love it, and that’s a really scary concept, but as parents you have to trust that we will use our best judgement. You may think you can teach us all you know and help us with all our problems because you’ve lived it all before. Be advised that we know you are trying to grasp it all, but it won’t ever happen.
