Techology has changed us. Is changing us.
In researching for this new job endeavor, I've been reading a lot of interesting facts and studies about Chinese teens and the newest generation of the most populous nation on earth. But with all these 'answers' I seem to be only coming up with more questions.
How do generations reconcile cultural differences? Those crazy kids! are always up to something new that parents usually have no introduction to or understanding of. This is not a new phenomenon. I like to think I have always had respect for older folk and the knowledge they have acquired and then taught me; where would I be without my teachers?
But I also learn so many things from the internet, this collection of free and easy knowledge. And I understand why more and more young people turn to computers and the internet in their free time and work time and study time. Since coming to China, I probably talk more to my friends who have skype than to my parents. Not because I love them more or less, but because it is easier to connect and communicate this way.
How to bridge the gap between teens and begetters when the basis of their lives is so different? When their experiences are so disparate and alien?
I've been reading about internet and computer addiction, the newly introduced NDD -Nature Deficiency Disorder-, and of course the age old drug and alcohol problems that afflict at risk youth. In wilderness training I learned how these things are often symptoms of a much deeper ailment, usually the dearth of love. But what and how and why to solve this problem?
Talking about global warming and the sickly situation of the world's oceans, a man in Lijiang brought up the problem that afflicted cities in the US at the turn of the 20th century: What to do with the MOUNTAINS of horse droppings on the streets?
We are changing, the world is changing, always. Is there anything that stands still?
(Looking west over the Yangzi river at Tiger Leaping Gorge.)
3 comments:
Where? It's gorgeous.
sorry, i mean the picture at the bottom of the post!
I think urban life can be very solitary and isolating for a multitude of very nuanced reasons. I think this is another reason people are using the internet so much; it's a safe place to be social when you live amongst a sea of unsmiling faces going to and from jobs and cars and homes. Sometimes when I ride the metro too much I start to feel like we're a huge colony of automatons. I understand when you see people en masse you can't just go around saying hi and smiling at everyone, but I often wonder what that does to our perception of "who we are," to see so many blank unfeeling faces everyday.
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