Always Connected: Generation Z, the “Digitarians”

Do they think all the magic takes place on the devices, or somewhere else? e.g. do they think of "syncing" as something that occurs directly between devices, or that involves services in the middle?

Digitarians know how to push big buttons, know nothing of how said buttons work, progress indeed. Depends on your definition of progress.

I was allowed many hours on the computer(albeit often having to take turns with my brother), but I concur that the emotional labor of listening and understanding is the number one thing my parents never "got." As I got older, their vicarious-living tendencies became more obvious - they wanted me doing things they personally liked and that was the farthest they could see.

That would be fine, but if it wasn't on their radar of likes, they saw no reason to bring it up or discuss it - and if I brought it up, they had a pattern of dismissal with no pledge of support or further discussion - sometimes using the Grave Serious tone, sometimes using the Explanatory, That's Nice, or Maybe Later tone. If I escalated or presented work to them, they would categorize it as a "career", "hobby" or "skill development" and position it relative to their preferred activities in a way which induced anxiety and discouraged me from continuing. The only thing I wanted was basic interest or acknowledgement, and they consistently messed that up by wheeling every conversation directly towards their comfort zone. To this day, if I try to talk about a personal issue, they rush to provide unsolicited solutions and explanations. I finally managed to unlearn the explaining pattern myself as I got into my later 20's, as my friends brought it to light.

So, at least at that time, I gave up on parental engagement and hid my life away in the computer instead, since at least there were people online, while weathering the (relatively mild, compared with others) storms of their own fancy. So too, I think, is the role of all of today's devices - when the family doesn't care, the screen fills in. It's a symptom.

I think it's right to set down rules at an early age. That is one thing I think my parents did do right, and the early years are probably more crucial overall. But they had no idea how to proceed from there - kids aren't going to be exactly like their parents, and that requires a lot of listening when they get into adolescence and try to speak for themselves.

>> all these boring consumer drones in the making.

On the upside, if you raise your own kids right they'll run circles around these drones in the job market. Sometimes having the collective bar set lower works out ok :)

I should clarify that what I described in my post took place during adolescence (age 10+), not childhood. The case for restricting screen use during childhood is more clear.

>It made you get creative, and it forced you to concentrate and maximize your leisure time.

Creative in coming up with ways to evade authority, perhaps. I was intensely paranoid of my parents discovering me on the computer. It sure was great having my adrenaline spike every half hour or so whenever I heard my mother's footsteps on the stairs. That sort of dynamic is hardly conducive to creative work. Instead, I gravitated towards short-form games, and I mastered the art of Alt-Tabbing. That's how I learned to "maximize my leisure time." I rarely risked playing long-form team-based games with my friends (e.g. StarCraft, DotA) because getting kicked off the computer meant letting my whole team down.

My parents did not succeed in reducing the amount of time I spent on the computer. They succeeded only in causing me to associate the computer with feelings of guilt, shame, and resentment; they succeeded in convincing me that there was something wrong with me.

Look, I'm not a parent, so I am missing some perspective. I understand that parents are people too, with full-time jobs and myriad other responsibilities; they don't always have time to sit down and connect with their kids. Overall, it seems incredibly difficult to instill proper values in a child without also instilling some neuroses along the way. That is why I am able to forgive my parents. But forgiving them does not mean that I agree with their actions. They fell into the old trap -- "People fear what they do not understand" -- and their knee-jerk reaction was to treat me like a drug addict, subjecting me to verbal abuse, constant monitoring, and the occasional "this-time-we're-serious" intervention. You can do better.