The Demands Of The 21st Century

Many of you will be watching the new series of "Black Mirror" on Netflix; for those of you that aren't, the series consists of one-off episodes presenting a dystopian vision of the nearfuture, focussing in particular on technology and its impact on society. One particularly striking episode featured an anxious mother's overprotective measures to monitor her daughter's life via a brain implant which relays her "visual feed" to her mother's tablet as well as measuring the daughter's stress levels, drug intake and so on.

Inevitably, things end badly when mum sees rather too much of what her daughter gets up to on supposed “movie nights”. In common with many of the best episodes of this series, the story’s success hangs on two distinct features: the tantalising plausibility of the technology, which can often feel just a few years away, but also the natural human emotions which underpin its use. We all have an inbuilt and strongly felt need to protect our children. However, that instinct can sometimes develop into an unhealthy desire to manage our children’s lives to excess, or to stave off their inevitable growing up.

Thankfully, the capability to literally be the eyes and ears of our children is a long way off, but technology still enables parents to be reassured about their children’s safety much more readily than they used to be. Mobile phones are the primary source of this, with children in ready contact with parents directly as well as apps such as “Find a Friend” allowing their whereabouts to be seen easily. There is though a less obvious but perhaps more pernicious reason that children are much safer than they have been for generations; they don’t go out any more. It might be surprising, but all the evidence points to a generation of children and young adults who drink less, dabble in drugs less and are less promiscuous than ever before. Why is that? The studies point to the increasing prevalence of mobile phone use and social media. Pubs are closing because youngsters would rather stay in than go out; they drive less because they live at home longer and rely on “dad taxis”; they are less likely to have their own children young or to enter into the other traditional paths to adulthood such as marriage or home buying.

It’s hard to know how to feel about these developments. Of course, a safer living environment for young people is to be welcomed. However, the increase of internal lifestyles, both literally and metaphorically, carries its own dangers. Youngsters may be safer than they were before, but they don’t seem to be any happier; millennial angst is alive and kicking. I’m going to be optimistic though and not bemoan a reduction in risk-taking behaviour; the young people I meet on a daily basis seem far more sensible than I remember being at their age. Science would suggest that our brains are not fully developed until our mid-twenties, so perhaps the “slow-life” strategy employed by young adults today is a wise one. There is plenty of time (realistically 50 years of employment) for those children to enjoy the challenges of domestic and professional life; as one young man said, “I don’t want to have a child when I’m not sure if I’m going to have a job tomorrow.” As parents we need to adjust to the different demands of the 21st century and not try to solve their problems with 20th century solutions. A challenge for us all.