Intro to Sociology - Assignment 2

Technology and the Youth of Today

Ian James Solarski

When I was a kid, technology was rather limited. The internet was just starting to develop, computers were still slow , cell phones were still expensive and limited, and video game systems were not as entertaining as they are now. My parents took more interests in the things me and my brother did every day, we would go fishing , ride our bikes with our friends , and got out of the house to just go do what ever, even extracurricular activities at school.

“Cultural Lag – the gap between technology and material culture and its social beliefs and institutions”(Aronson/Kimmel-Sociology Now Pg 62) As of today it is widely accepted that children and teens are using many forms of technology and substituting it for physical activities (hanging out with friends and various other things) as well as interacting out side of the virtual world with people. Usually causing social skills to be rather limited and not very well developed.

“Unless we provide all of our young people with access to interactive technologies and the training to use them, we stand in danger of creating another, even greater divide, this one separating the cando’s from the can-not’s. Basic communications skills will soon include computer and multimedia competency as well knowing how to read.”(http://www.morino.org/pdf/cdf.pdf Page 12 9/22/12) As Mario Morino thought, technology and the coming of the internet as we know today, he believed that it would change how kids today would learn and interact with each other, he stated “The real power of interactive communications is people as the ultimate source of knowledge. It is not the computers, the physical mass of wires, the complex of networks or the vast databases of information. Rather, it is people and their knowledge, relationships, insights, and spirit freely passed from one to another that engender the “magic” of this interconnected world that the Internet is making possible.” (http://www.morino.org/pdf/cdf.pdf - Page 3 9/22/12) Granted the introduction of the internet to public schools and to everyone greatly improved on how information and knowledge was passed to each other and how it made everything accessible to ones fingertips. The realization of what sociological problems the internet would cause was not foreseen by him.

“Values are the ethical foundations of a culture, its ideas about right and wrong , good and bad. They are among the most basic lessons a culture can transmit to its young because values constitute what a society thinks about its self.”(Aronson/Kimmel – Sociology Now – Pg 51) When thes values that we grew up with had changed to what they are now when the internet and technology reached its level to where it is currently. Parents followed in its foot steps and began to rely on it to teach their children some of the most basic norms and values, including how to interact with other children and adults. Tho not all cases are like this , those parents who have seen this potential problem became more involved in how their children would interact with the internet and technology, they did not rely on it to teach their kids to do everything that they themselves should be teaching them about values and how to interact.

“Being online not only detaches individuals from the constraints imposed by location, but also frees them from the constraints associated with their offline personalities and social roles. Youth have an opportunity to express online their “real” or inner selves, using the relative anonymity of the internet to be the person they want to be and experimenting with their identity and self”(Bargh/McKenna - The Internet and Social Life ) The internet net does provide a way to explore ones limits where as in real life they wouldn’t be able to take on this new persona. Some are still able to see the difference between real life and the virtual world but many youth submerse themselves with in this virtual world in effort to escape real life and to take on a fantasy life. This is when parents need to recognize that their children have detached themselves from reality and taken on this new identity , whether it is simply the internet and various chat rooms or social networking sites to MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game). As an example of one of the most popular MMO's out there is Second-life , I have met many sociology students doing their research with this game, Second-life is very different then most MMO's and chat rooms, within second life there is its own culture and sub cultures that have been brought together by people from all over the world, and yet each person in world (while on second life) brings something to the community and culture whether it is something small like having social interactions with another, to something larger, creating content within the game or bringing people together by providing a service or a virtual location. But even with this there are many who detach themselves from real life and society and become immersed in their virtual persona and life. But what is there to do about this? What can we do to help merge the real life culture and the virtual one? And how can we learn to adapt better and teach our youth to be able to separate the virtual world and the real one. Do we really want our society to become so immersed within the internet that we would let something like what happened in the movie Gamer?(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034032/ )

Morino, Mario. The Impact of Technology on Youth in the 21 st Century. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 3-12. http://morino.org/about_mario.htm. Web. 22 Sept. 2012. <http://www.morino.org/pdf/cdf.pdf>.

Kimmel, Michael, and Amy Aronson. Sociology Now. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 51 & 61-62. Print.

John A. Bargh and Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, “The Internet and Social Life,” Annual Review of Psychology

55 (2004): 573–90