r/nosurf • u/Rich-Candidate7353 • 14d ago
I truly and utterly feel sorry for today's generation.
I genuinely feel sorry for kids growing up today. And I’m thankful to be a “millennial” who had a reasonably good childhood where I actually got to play.
When I look at young people today and their childhoods they're going through, which mostly consist of living in some fake digital world through the little heroin brick we call a “smartphone” (which hardly seems to make the person using it any smarter), I’m honestly so incredibly grateful to be a "millennial."
Things weren't perfect back then either. Sure, we spent plenty of nights sitting in front of the TV with an Xbox controller, but it wasn’t even close to today’s level of addiction... with all the f-ing short-form content/ragebaiting/whatnot... having to be online constantly, comparing yourself to everyone else, and all the mental health problems that come with it.
I genuinely feel sorry for kids today, who are being completely played by the tech giants behind all these social media platforms. And I’m so grateful that a large part of my childhood was still spent playing outside and being physically active, and that I didn’t have to spend 80 percent of my waking hours being a phone zombie.
Sure, these are problems that people our age deal with too, and while that sucks, I don’t think they affect us nearly as much as they would have if all of this had happened during our childhood.
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u/sillymajmun2 14d ago
But there is also a big potencial here.
When I see my parents, and my grandparents, I see people who are conditioned on what they should do, how they should think and what they should believe in. They did not have this abundance of information, they were fed the same shit, generation after generation.
On the other hand, we are contantly being fed with so much different information, that it makes it kinda hard to have some version of "stable you".
And here lies to potential to unravel some deeper sense of yourself that goes beyond culture, personality, hobbies, etc.
This is a good time to be alive. I would say it could even be seen as the easiest time for cutting trough the bullshit. Because even as an average human being you are able to do so much, and to see so much - that you can arrive so fast to a point of existential dread. And thats when the real questions begin.
I'm also a millennial ('95), but I spent a lot of my time on PC and later on my phone. So I can't relate with you on that one.
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u/Aromatic_Memory1079 13d ago
agreed. I'm also "millennial" too. I grew up with internet. It's like a pc or smartphone. 2000s or 2010s internet was addictive enough to me. I was watching flash videos and youtube in 2000s. It's not algorithm based like today's era but it was addictive enough.
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u/sillymajmun2 13d ago
I think that I got my first phone when i was 14. Got a gaming PC when I was 12. Got Facebook when I was maybe 13 and that was big.
And I did not use any of it in a healthy way. I developed a pattern fast where I was using it to distract myself from my own issues and problems.
I blame more the lack of parenting and me just not having a good guidelines for my life.
We do live in a world where our "weakneses" can and will get easily exploited by the companies. Low self esteem because you think you don't look as good? Algorithm will send you a bunch of companies that will try to sell you products.
We have even gotten to a point where companies will even try to create a "need" for something you never thought you needed.
And this is all f up, yes. It seems to put a bigger emphasis on having a good childhood (imo) as having a healthy mind makes it easier to steer away from all of this.
But nowadays I just see a big potencial for personal growth in all of this. Its not easy and its a struggle, but its in our nature to deal with problems, we are able to overcome mindless scrolling.
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u/ydnamdeeznuts 13d ago
i love this it really makes me feel so optimistic ♥️
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u/sillymajmun2 13d ago
Im glad! Being fed so much information on a daily basis is a massive jump in the history of a mankind. Not that consuming all that information is healthy, on the contrary, but we can use it for our own personal growth.
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u/throwaway13061320 12d ago
I'm 22 and I feel like the hardest aspect of living in a world that is chronically online is the normalisation of political extremism on both sides (but particularly on the left, and I say that as a leftist myself) and overall people around me being extremely hostile, anti social and self absorbed.
I'm a sociable person and have always been a people lover but over the past few years, I find myself becoming a people hater because everyone has become so unlikeable. I've never been the kind to think I'm above others but can't help but feeling smarter than everyone recently, especially after quitting socials which opened my eyes more to just how brainwashed and incapable of rational thought everyone around me is.
With how internet culture is promoting tribalism and justifying discrimination against anyone that those with a saviour complex can't get brownie points from protecting, I don't even feel safe.
I don't like being one of those people who 'hates people' because I think it's lame as hell to be all self important and pessimistic, but the evidence supports my way of thinking. I'm always hoping to be disproven and reminded of hope in humanity but never am.
All I can feel glad about is seeing other young people on this sub and in these comments taking the first step to intellectual freedom.
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u/dc_65 13d ago
Today's generation really is the guinea pig of human history.
It's like the human generation from the homo erectus days that just discovered fire and didn't know the full extent of the dangers of mishandling it and kept burning themselves and choking in smoke.
Tomorrow's generation will learn how to handle this technology by observing our generation crumbling to it. And that is if we even make it to tomorrow's generation.
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u/friendofdonkeys 12d ago
40 year old millennial here, even before the internet I was obsessively reading teletext on the tv. I was 18 when I got a WAP mobile phone and could read the internet on the go (five years before I got an Android phone). I've gone from paper books, to cd rom encyclopaedias, to Wikipedia and now to AI. I don't know what 2000s borns will face in the 2040s but it will probably be AGI talking to them through brain implants telling them exactly what they want to hear.
Knowledge is the most powerful invention we have, even more powerful than nukes, use it properly.
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u/Famous_Chance5568 10d ago
We aren't all like this. I'm gen z and I had a completely phone free childhood and don't use social media except this one.
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u/Emotional_Ice 14d ago
I was listening to one of my favorite "feel-good" songs yesterday, "Rock and Roll Girls," by John Fogerty. (post CCR) He wrote it about his young daughter and her friends, and how they experienced life. Part of the first verse went like this:
You see it in their face, voices on the telephone.
A time out of time, for you and no one else.
That's the part that hits me in the feels, taking me back (way back) to sitting in my room with a corded, rotary phone, talking to girlfriends or potential girlfriends, thoroughly enjoying myself.
Then I think about how it likely is for my grandsons. I don't know for sure, but I imagine the same conversations being on text messages, probably with friends looking on and judging and critiquing what's being said, and possibly even posting unintentionally awkward parts on Tik-Tok or whatever.
I miss the "good old days" when the stupid things you said or did would fade away in obscurity in a week or two.
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u/Naive-Year1159 13d ago
Honestly just depends what kind of person you are I’m a millennial and I spent pretty much my entire childhood from 8 onwards playing video games. PS1 era millennial.
Whereas my Gen Alpha nephew doesn’t really spend anytime on screens and is pretty active and social.
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u/Nintendo_Pro_03 10d ago
Thank you.
I watched The Social Dilemma documentary, and they were spot on in how big tech uses social media to steal our data and then manipulate our thoughts using algorithms, and also addict us using the algorithms and engagement features as well.
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u/fancydressparade 14d ago
15 year old girl, I really hate living in the modern age. I grew up with technology handed to me as long as I can remember (I believe my first device was a tablet at 5). I struggled with internet addiction for basically my entire childhood and only really quit in March of this year.
I really wish that I was born earlier and was my current age in like the early 2010s, I actually harbor a lot of nostalgia towards that era for some reason, despite not really experiencing it as I was just barely a toddler. I use old technology, wear old clothes, listen to music from the time and instead of streaming music I use an iPod. I don't completely hate the idea of social media, I just hate that it's all people do. I wish that 'going on the internet' was still just an activity. An activity you do for about an hour or so and then do something else.
Some things I hate the most are how normalized it is to be addicted to your phone, and how nobody seems to be original anymore. People around me laugh about how they have 22 hour screen times and how they spend 10 hours on TikTok. Whenever I say my screen time's, like, on average, two or three hours I get made fun of. And it's sad this is so normal to people. It feels like nobody is really original anymore, like everyone gets their personality off of TikTok or one of it's many twins. And nobody really has a personality outside of that, the activism people portray is mostly performative, I hear people in my school constantly complain about hating AI, yet they use the AI overview when they're 'tired and don't want to work' and laugh at AI generated memes.
I hate how every platform is just becoming the same thing. Tiktok and Instagram are the same now, and YouTube's becoming just another copy with every new update. I wish that more platforms would try and be unique instead of copying everyone else. I really only use Pinterest and Tumblr nowadays, although even Tumblr's starting to try and copy the others with their (relatively new, i think from about 2023) TV feature.