Good essay. I recommend reading throughout. Even though there is a lot of talk about religion providing social infrastructure for community, the author is not prescribing it, only describing. I...
Good essay. I recommend reading throughout. Even though there is a lot of talk about religion providing social infrastructure for community, the author is not prescribing it, only describing.
Knowing all this, the solution becomes obvious. No, I’m not calling for everyone to fully abandon the digital world or decide to become religious and conservative. But I am saying that secular families and liberal parents may need to work harder and be more intentional about providing their children with tight-knit, real-world communities that can combat the ill effects of the immersive and addictive virtual world.
This is the key point: Virtual networks are not sufficient replacements for real-world communities.
One common objection to the claim that real-world communities are better than virtual networks is that social media platforms offer marginalized youth many social benefits — they can find the like-minded peers they don’t have in their real-world communities.
Of course, that’s a good thing... [But] These online networks are often unstable, transient, and full of unknown people — and they are embedded within platforms designed to fuel outrage and keep their users online much longer than they intend. Giving our most vulnerable teens unfettered access to an unregulated world with no guardrails or support does not outweigh the meager social benefits. We can do better than this.
I think the modern virtuous race to eliminate all risks and unknowns for children has also left no room for childhood joy, discovery, and serendipity. The flip side of that is working to set children up for success by over-scheduling them with activities.
Bad parents let their children get hurt. You don't want to be a bad parent, do you?
This is all set against the backdrop of a modern economy where there's job insecurity and the middle market of jobs is being hollowed out by global competition and automation — but also a modern culture that is more goal-oriented and optimization-minded than ever.
Projecting from my own childhood experiences, I grew up in a very affluent place (one of America's wealthiest zip codes!) where the parents—especially many professional-class immigrants—moved to so their children could attend excellent schools so they could go to excellent colleges and get excellent jobs in a big city somewhere else — the town didn't feel like a real community, it was just a transient, life-purposeless place, a stepping stone to somewhere else. I was one of the first unhappy children to experience this new modern childhood: I never learned to enjoy the here and now, my community was all about the future somewhere else.
I think that these religion communities have imbued themselves with a sense of purpose that's not transactional and transient.
Good essay. I recommend reading throughout. Even though there is a lot of talk about religion providing social infrastructure for community, the author is not prescribing it, only describing.
I think the modern virtuous race to eliminate all risks and unknowns for children has also left no room for childhood joy, discovery, and serendipity. The flip side of that is working to set children up for success by over-scheduling them with activities.
Bad parents let their children get hurt. You don't want to be a bad parent, do you?
This is all set against the backdrop of a modern economy where there's job insecurity and the middle market of jobs is being hollowed out by global competition and automation — but also a modern culture that is more goal-oriented and optimization-minded than ever.
Projecting from my own childhood experiences, I grew up in a very affluent place (one of America's wealthiest zip codes!) where the parents—especially many professional-class immigrants—moved to so their children could attend excellent schools so they could go to excellent colleges and get excellent jobs in a big city somewhere else — the town didn't feel like a real community, it was just a transient, life-purposeless place, a stepping stone to somewhere else. I was one of the first unhappy children to experience this new modern childhood: I never learned to enjoy the here and now, my community was all about the future somewhere else.
I think that these religion communities have imbued themselves with a sense of purpose that's not transactional and transient.