When viewed in 2018, Future Shock (1972), narrated by Orson Welles, seems quaint, if not comical, in consideration of the fears shared by society in the 1960’s and 1970’s. To think that the abundance of grocery items and the ability to replace things like toy dolls easily, should strike great fear in society — fear of high-speed change — is laughable in consideration of the over-choice with which we are familiar today. Indeed, there are certainly more options for consumption than feasibly imagined in the sixties. The difference now, is that we are not dwelling on how the industrial revolution has shifted our values as we shift into a super-industrial society. Instead, we have moved our fears onto the latest and supposedly greatest technological innovation to date, i.e. the internet and social media. Ironically, the problems Welles (1972) discusses, having nothing to do with the internet or social media, are steadfast in today’s internet-focused society. Welles (1972) discusses the notion that people were living in an age of anxiety of their own creation. Jean Twenge’s 2017 article in The Atlantic, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” and Werner Herzog’s 2016 documentary film, Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World, both serve as modern-day exemplars of the concept Welles (1972) describes. While Herzog (2016) certainly captures the innovative achievements made possible for humanity with the help of the internet, his questions and Twenge’s data depict the unsettling experience more closely associated with my own.
In Herzog’s (2016) film, it is difficult, at least in this moment, to imagine the problems he introduces as anything close to quaint or comical. He offers ethical questions regarding laws on the sharing of images, self-driving cars, internet addiction, and whether there will be a need for human companionship in the future. Surely, Orson Welles would not have foreseen a future debate regarding the privacy rights of a deceased person in terms of image-sharing policies, but his concept that we are living in an age of anxiety, that we created, is present in Herzog’s example of a deceased girl named Nikki. An image of her decapitated head was able to be disseminated to vast numbers of individuals before ultimately being sent, multiple times and in multiple capacities, to her father, all because we have enabled the capabilities to share and gather information about seemingly anything, such as the identification of Nikki’s family members and contact information. Herzog (2016) does not portray a society totally against the internet and its capacities, but instead presents those excited with what it can do for humanity, e.g. in terms of medical research, while remaining unsure of how exactly it will play out.
Beyond problems that arise with the advents of the internet that are as obvious as those surrounding the image-sharing of Nikki, Herzog (2016) also presents a question regarding the future need for human companionship. While that question seems far-fetched, as most of us surely cannot imagine a world without human companionship, Jean Twenge (2017) presents a generation for which less human companionship is the norm. Twenge (2017) refers to this generation, i.e. people born between the years 1995 and 2012, as “iGen,” given they are the first generation to grow up with the internet “ever-present in their lives, at hand at all times, day and night.” Studying generational differences for 25 years, Twenge (2017) interprets the anomaly that is the sudden shift in teen behaviors and emotional states in 2012. She points to the simultaneous rise of the smartphone and social media as factors that define characteristics of this generation, characteristics of their psychological vulnerability. Twenge (2017) presents a scenario in which we have created the technologies that allow teens to socialize online, as opposed to solely in-person, which have also seemingly enabled teens to spend more time alone under the guise of maintaining connection with others through online communication. That is, we are, again, living in an age of anxiety of our own creation.
Twenge (2017) discusses data that confirm my existing realizations that the more screen time spent, the worse I feel. On each site I visit I am not merely interacting with others or viewing others’ lives. I scroll past smiling faces, tanned, glistening bodies, delectable snacks, breathtaking vacation scenery, beautiful furnishings, outings of which I am not apart, all artistically enhanced images (with today’s technological advances), such that the nuance captured sends the clear message that I, currently laying in my bed alone, am inadequate. While I recognize it is not the internet’s fault if I see my ex-boyfriend is at a fun party with people of whom I am jealous, I know that without the internet and social media, I would likely not have real-time visual access, i.e. photographic or video evidence, to a location at which I am not. Twenge (2017) hits on this note of the feeling of loneliness that often results from the usage of a social network which, ironically, offers promises of more connection made possible than ever before, yet simultaneously contributes to users’ feelings of isolation.
Technological advancements following the invention of the internet have arguably created more fears than the ones discussed by Orson Welles (1972) concerning a super-industrial society. Regardless, both technological changes stirred up parallel ethical questions regarding societal values and purpose. With changes as rapid as those in the digital age, keeping up with the associated social changes is understandably a challenge. Still, those changes should be monitored, for it is clear that Twenge (2017) confirms fears surrounding the relationship between the internet and our mental states as not only existent, but also encouraged by, if not caused by, our own technological innovations and uses. Although, in the moment, our fears of technological progress may feel like they hold us back, perhaps they merely encourage us to proceed with caution.
