AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR US
The world paradigm has practically shifted over to the online realm. As the ones with explosive potential, what has it come to mean for our generation?
It’s hard to argue against technology today, despite the many futuristic sci-fi movies that tried to show the many ways it could harm us. But in this pandemic, and the future aftermath, the digital industry will certainly grow. Every activity of ours is dependent on our laptop, and the fear of Wi-Fi connection failing is a prevalent nightmare to many. It’s difficult to realise the opportunities that this time presents to us, the young who were waiting to be thrown into the “real world”. This certainly doesn’t happen to be a very promising time in our lives to begin with but nevertheless there exists a plethora of what we have found in these absolutely lost times as we shall find out here.
Being young citizens in times of such a pandemic is a powerful realization. In a way, we’re left to build our own future and this time the control of conventional ways of adulting has dissolved itself in the idea of a new normal. And how it turns out now is that, this time the normal is tilted in the favour of the tech-dependent generation of the young. The world as we knew it and the standards it set for us have all evolved. From “zoom” becoming a verb that is practically synonymous to ‘birthday cake cuttings at Foodys’ to Clubs and Chapters conducting meetings and events on it, most of what we encountered in person, happens on a screen now. From “Ludo”, “Skribblo”, and “PUBG” being the most preferred form of interactions with peers, and the online courses and with its PDFs and Google sheets becoming the new version of having twenty people in a room helping one person give a quiz.
The way we worked has indeed changed overnight and installed itself on our laptops as we wait for our final exams to also be over the internet. While all aspects of our lives have gone digital so have the abstract attributes of being young. Creativity now flows unperturbed as new trend changer lately. Multiple dance and music groups and even celebrities have raised funds via sharing their talents and channelling the funds to COVID19 funds. The flow of art and talent, has as well, received new found appreciation that usually was deterred by them being “extra-curriculars” specially for students. The emptiness of isolation has seemingly become the reason for creative explosion disguised as betterment for status-quo.
One of the primary reasons for such a trend is the lowered threshold than enables the young to take active part in social welfare and allows them to be an equitable part of the change maker movements. This has given a chance for our generation to enter the world of content creation with low-barrier access to the platform to appeal to the masses. One might think, how this creates a false sense of contribution and reduces appreciation of art as its devalued with such a mass appeal. However, in these extra-ordinary times, more or less all previous standards are challenged and need to be reconstructed via such efforts.
Considering the bigger picture, many platforms have bridged the gap between the young people and social activism. One of such is The International Youth Foundation, an organisation working to equip everyone with benefits of education. They have started a simple social media campaign to promote good practice in the times for corona and shared stories and ideas of how people were contributing positively. In the same stride of spreading goodwill many local communities and influential youngsters copied the idea of “Some Good News” a show hosted by John Krasinski to replicate the impact of this very optimistic angle to news reading. Furthermore, the initiative by The Global Education and Leadership Foundation (TGELF) called uLEAD has specifically sparked a great deal of interest to me personally. They envision to curate altruistic paths for leaders of tomorrow and provide you with a customised dashboard with information about events like Global Citizen festivals happening around the continents and cities; They also tabulate all the NGOs they work with and let one choose to work with any NGO of your choice or make donations to them. From Oxfam India to work related to providing food assistance to families during lockdown, the spectrum of work available is amazing and encouraging. AND all of these are opportunities that are just a search away, and currently being availed by many young people. Further, the sky of possibility has no limits when innovation is your flight.
These organisations also welcome independent initiatives and collaborate with them to support their growth to encourage individuality in good deeds.As for what remains absolutely authentic about youth through its activism though this time, is the flexibility of mechanism it has, based on the individuality of the creator. This is by far the most sought-after characteristic of the young to be able to express themselves as they are. Memes, virtual open mics and even viral tik-toks have become effective tools for the younger generation to engage and contribute. An example would be the popularization of handwash routines as filters and people not practicing have been condemned.
Such unique opportunities have fuelled dialogue about the things hidden in the layers of what we knew previously as the “real world”. Neither did the talk about domestic violence ever see such a widespread engagement, nor did we have better tools for propagating the right meaning of feminism and silencing the misconstrued opinions. Along with propagation of good practices, “fake news” and security threats have been rampant too. While one may think it’s the flip side of being dependant on technology, it is the extensive use of it that has unarguably thrown light on these issues and established precedence for further development.
The argument of human reality vs. the virtual world of online existence stands dissolved in such unlikely circumstances, asserting the unpredictability of our future. In a world where the human touch is toxic, the need for it is overpowered by the need to survive safely. And the next best option is the computer world. It seems to have put us at the forefront of this inevitable revolution. The question that arises here is how sustainable this new normal will be when the threat of COVID-19 recedes. Will we fall back to the limitations of the conventional offline world or continue being digital? Or will, there be another surge of changes? And what is our end goal in such precarious times? The answer lies somewhere in the idea that, this experience goes beyond being selfless. Self-actualization and exploration of otherwise unattended issues is changing the dimensions of our personality and minds. While the immediate impact of our actions might be short term, but its long-lasting in the way our lives are carved.
It’s not a very common characteristic to have hobbies, but its human to be passionate about change. And the lookout presented here puts gains of individuality over productivity to assess actions. Thus, something that is not so uncertain is the characteristic of our generation wanting to do more and move ahead unrestricted and irrespective of the condition of the path ahead. Repurposing and preparing ourselves through these times, is the core of how the young shall always live. And we’re proud to stay undeterred.
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