Recently, I gave in to curiosity and watched the pilot episode of Fox’s new horror/comedy series, “Scream Queens.” I must admit that my expectations for acting quality were low, but I’ve always been a fan of campy horror, so I took the risk of getting addicted to yet another television show. I don’t want to make this about the show, although I will say it was better than I expected. What struck me most about the series is how deliberately in conversation it is with the culture of 20-somethings. Most poignantly, a character (who shall remain nameless to avoid spoilers) live-tweets her own death. Although it was a humorous scene, it got me thinking about the implications of a well-established genre like horror shifting to accommodate the culture of the people consuming the entertainment.

The internet’s surge in popularity coincided with Millennials’ puberty. As the face of communication was changing, so were our faces. The point-and-click nature of information only spurned critics, who claimed that the instant gratification provided by the web was making us spoiled, entitled, and impatient. Recently, a video surfaced of sports announcers criticizing a group of sorority girls taking selfies at a baseball game. It all sounded too familiar – young people today spend too much time buried in their phones, Instagramming, tweeting, posting on Facebook, and texting. Are young people losing the values of our parents’ generation by participating in the rapid globalization of media, or are we creating something even more valuable?

According to a global poll conducted by Time Magazine, one in four people check their phone every 30 minutes, and one in five check it every 10 minutes. Additionally, the poll revealed that three-quarters of 18- to 35-year-olds sleep with their phone. With numbers like these, it’s easy to formulate the argument that people are too tuned in to the technology and not experiencing the real world. I know there have been times when I myself have cursed under my breath at someone bumping into me on the sidewalk with their eyes glued to their phone or picking up their phone too often at the dinner table. Although the concern for a lack of face-to-face interaction is real and valid, the argument for putting down the phones and stepping away from the computers doesn’t fully consider what is going on while people are plugged in.

For our generation, social media serves as a platform for historical documentation and progress. One of the largest viral events of 2012 was Egypt’s "first real election in 30 years," during which the hashtags #Egyelections and #GotInk (referring to the blue ink used to fingerprint voters) were spread across social media outlets like Instagram and Twitter. Closer to home, the death of Trayvon Martin sparked a social conversation that found momentum on Twitter and later evolved to highlight the deaths of other Black youths at the hands of law enforcement, becoming the locus of the Black Lives Matter movement. During events like these, the news outlets are tuned in to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, knowing that social media will be everywhere when they cannot. Gone are the days when the news van would arrive on a scene after the fact; the internet can now support a live account.

The velocity with which ideas and causes can be spread globally has changed the way people, particularly Millennials, see their place in the world. I like to compare our generation’s social-media-based causes to the virility of the anti-Vietnam movement of our parents’ generation. The passion with which a modern Twitter user can advocate for a social cause they believe in is just as strong as that of the proverbial 1970s picketer. Social media is fully living up to its title. Yes, we socialize using the tools of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., but we are also changing society using these tools. Just scrolling through Twitter or Tumblr, one might actually be learning about modern sociological thought on gender identity, race, or international relations. The way information is presented to global citizens has changed, is changing, and will never be the same. All the knowledge we could want or need (and then some) is at our fingertips. Being plugged in doesn't just mean that young people are wasting their lives looking at a screen, the ever-present nature of relevant, global knowledge makes Millennials ever aware and continually evolving in the realms of social thought.