philosophyblogposts

[philosophyblogposts]

Blog Post #2: Why Technology and Over-Parenting Are Creating the Need for Emotional Security and Why It’s A Bad Thing.

A generation is defined through a common phenomenon or historical event that creates a prominent generational gap.The four most recent generations include baby boomers, Generation X, millennials, and Generation Z, also known as i Gen. All generations are known for something that makes them unique from all the rest. Each Generation tends to have a key feature or common characteristic among them. For baby boomers is was being born after World War Two, Generation X is known for growing with little to no supervision, millennials are known for being nurtured by their parents, and for generation Z it is the increasing need for emotional security or in other words, being way to sensitive. The growing need for emotional security is seen clearly throughout generation Z and it is not a good thing, and there are two things to blame for this phenomenon. Technology and over parenting. How do technology and over parenting cause emotional security, and how can these issues be solved and prevented?

The only generation to grow up fully intertwined with the internet and technology compared to other generations where their lives existed before the internet is Generation Z. Technology is often seen as a great innovation that expands all aspects of our daily lives, but technology effects the individual in more ways than most people expect. More often than not, these effects are negative. These negative effects are seen in mainly young children and adolescents and the effects spread to all aspects of their lives. These negative effects are seen in their academics and even in their social lives. Young children and adolescents use and experience social media for most of their lives. From a young age they immediately learn to value others opinions over their own, and most teens experience cyber bullying regularly. Not only does technology damage their mental health, it damages the way they think and process information. This feeds into all aspects of their lives, including their education. Although having endless amounts of information at your fingertips is a great advantage, it often causes young children and teens to become disengaged from their school work and these individuals end up becoming machines rather than learning and developing human beings. Generation Z has learned to skim for important information and answers, rather than learning and soaking up all aspects of the classes they take. While some people from other generations may argue that they also just learned information for a class and then forgot it, it is quite different now versus then. You may think that just learning and forgetting the information is all that happened in your classrooms. But in reality, a lot more learning happened in those classes and homework than you might've thought. There was most likely a lot of writing and reading in those classes, and you had to really search for your answers. There was also a lot of face to face teaching, the environments were different, and you were probably more engaged with others socially while doing course work. But compared to how generation Z is taught in the educational system, most of those things have drastically changed. The differences are shown in four different ways. The first way technology has changed education is that there is way less reading and writing involved in education now. Studies show that education now is deteriorating adolescents reading and writing abilities due to the lack of it in the education curriculum. The second way technology has changed education is by dehumanizing learning environments. Education is becoming less and less socially engaging, which brings us to the next way technology has changed education, it is changing and distorting the social and face to face interactions between teachers and students. This stops the part of education that includes self reflecting and peer evaluation. The only way to fix these issues and negative effects is to cut back they use of technology and social media all together. Maybe there should be more effective and strict age restrictions on social media apps and platforms. In classrooms there should be a cut back on the amount of time spent on computers and tablets and replace them with more engaging face to face activities to encourage social growth.

Over parenting, also called helicopter parenting not only stunts independent growth, but it also creates a false sense of self. It's also proven to increase a Childs anxiety and depression levels.  When a child is over parented, the effects are endless in negativity. The child will no longer be able to make important decisions themselves, and when sent out into the real world as an independent individual, they will not succeed and probably end up back at home. Over parenting causes the need for emotional security to increase drastically. While there are many reasons like terrorist attacks and crime rates increasing that make the parents of generation Z intensely over protective, they often don't realize how detrimental and damaging it is to their children. Not only will this effect the child and their future, it will also effect the generations before them. Without a successful next generation, there will be no one to support the past generations. These facts need to be known and talked about more often so that parents learn when to step in, and when not too.

Articles & websites used: 

“Four Ways Technology Has Negatively Changed Education”  By: Dr. Khadija Alhumaid 

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/06/helicopter-parenting

[philosophyblogposts]

Blog Post #1: The Increasing Need For Emotional Security

Each generation is different from the next. From technology to historical moments, every generation creates a name for itself. But are things changing through generations that we couldn't have seen coming? Emotional security among generations has increased drastically and is continuing to do so. Why is it that each generation is becoming more and more sensitive?

A generation is defined through a common phenomenon or historical events that creates a prominent generational gap. The four most recent generations include baby boomers, Generation X, millennials, and Generation Z, also known as i Gen. Baby Boomers range from the years 1946 to 1964. Generation X ranges from years 1965-1977. Millennials range from years 1977 to 1993. And Generation Z ranges from years 1993-2005. Each Generation tends to have a key feature or common characteristic among them. For baby boomers is was being born after World War Two, Generation X is known for growing with little to no supervision, millennials are known for being nurtured by their parents, and for generation Z it is the increasing need for emotional security. But the question is why?

Many people have many theories about what is causing this phenomenon throughout generation Z and new generations to come. Some think the need for emotional security is increasing because of technological take over, while others believe that it is because of the way generation Z was taught and brought up as children. Generation Z has been the only generation to grow up without knowing life before the internet, unlike other generations where their lives existed before and technology was introduced later on. Technology can effect an individual in positive and negative ways, but more often than not, the effect is negative. Developing brains are more malleable than fully grown adult brains, and when young individuals spend a lot of time online, the effects are shown in all aspects of the individuals life from academics to social life. Members of generation Z experience social media and all its effects from an extremely young age. Although technology allows individuals to connect with others beyond any imagination, technology also introduces young children and teens too many negative aspects as well. Two out of many things young children and teens experience is cyber bullying and the feeling of constant pressure to present themselves in a certain way to fit social expectations. This all effects individuals mental health negatively and regularly results in depression among teens. Technology also has been proved to cause a lack in social skills and communication skills. When it comes to academics, the results from technology are endless. Technology allows for a massive amount of information to be at your fingertips at any given moment. This can help students learn vital information in many situations, but it often causes young children and teens to become disengaged from their school work and these individuals end up becoming machines rather than learning and developing human beings. Generation Z has learned to skim for important information and answers, rather than learning and soaking up all aspects of the classes they take. This results in students learning information for a class, and then forgetting it when the class is over.

Generation Z grew up much differently than any other generation and there are many factors as to what caused this. The terrorist attack of 9/11 occurred when most of generation Z wasn’t even born yet, but this event is one that caused this generation to experience a much different world than any other generation before them. This historical moment and the many other terrorist attacks that have occurred during generation Z’s childhood have caused many parents to become much more cautious when it comes to raising their children. Many millennials and generations before them had free range childhoods. They spent a lot of their time exploring with their friends and riding bikes around without any parent supervision, there were no ‘helicopter parents’. But generation Z mainly grew up with exactly the opposite. Resulting from increased crime rates and terrorist attacks, many parents of Generation Z have become extremely cautious, protective, and they are always wanting to know what is going on every second of their Childs every day life. An example of just how over protective parents of generation Z are, is the use of tracking apps. Much of Generation Z is constantly monitored by their parents on tracking apps. These apps allow parents to see exactly where their child is at all times when they have their cell phone on them, which is all the time. A few years ago this would’ve been seen as completely overstepping the role of parenting and crossing the line of privacy.

Generation Z has shown just how different they really are from every other generation before them in every aspect of who they are. This generation will change the world drastically, let's just hope this change is for the better.

Articles/books used for this assignment:

“iGen” by Jean M. Twenge

“Generation Z: Technology and Social Interest” by Anthony Turner

“Adolescents in the times of modern technology: Are they mindful or are their minds full?” study by Shruti Modi, Uma Joshi, Dinesh Narayanakurupa