Activity III: Critical Essay Option #2
In today’s society, stereotypes and generalizations are made out to be the greatest form of social injustice. What is more offending than having one’s identity reduced to a simplistic, misinformed statement? Stereotypes have existed for as long as man has been capable of independent thought and they will always exist, if not only in the minds of ignorant people. That all young people are tech savvy and incapable of other forms of communication outside of their chosen interactional mediums is a modern stereotype that is not only an untrue generalization, but also potentially detrimental to our “generation’s” progression. I personally believe that no one model for today’s young people is entirely correct. Now more than ever, the name of the game is diversity and not even traditional models can be applied to young people anymore. The closest thing that comes to an accurate model for young people is a very loose conglomeration of traditional and modern generalizations, and even that has its flaws.
The technology-driven model stems from, for lack of a better term, the “generational” gap between older and younger people. The two groups of people could practically be from different cultures. The older people were raised in a world where manual labor reigned and hard work mixed with effort was the only way to get things done properly. The only way a writer, composer, or artist can have his or her work seen or heard by the public was to actually excel in their chosen field. Now, young people are raised in a time where anybody can write or compose anything and have it read by millions Today’s youth are assumed to be living like lazy kings compared to their parents. They have access to an unlimited amount of information at any given time and are free from many of the physically demanding tasks their parents were subjected to, if not only because of the presence of machines to do their work for them. While this does hold some ground in the realm of truth, to presume that all young people are of the same breed as these self-employed writers and lethargic delinquents is just another form of the despised discrimination that is such a great evil in our time. Generalizations are untrue simply because it is impossible to hold a fact against a large group of people and have it hold true to all of them. Young people are being discriminated against because of their age; something that is such a weak unifying factor in terms of personality that it is almost laughable to be a category entirely.
As I previously mentioned, a loose hybrid model for today’s youth is the ideal option for the most accurate generalization. The model would have to encompass every universal trait of young people, rendering it almost completely ineffective if not only for the fact that the same universal traits of young people also apply to every other age groups as well. Some of the traits would have to include a need to be accepted and loved, a desire to excel, and a demand for freedom. Clearly, to say these traits are exclusive to young people is wrong. This is, however, the only model that can be truly applied to the youth, proving that universal models are nothing more than a selfish attempt by our culture to divide society into distinguishable segments able to be marketed to and manipulated. What should actually be done is recognize that human nature is the only one true unifying factor in our society.
In conclusion, I agree with Vaidhyanathan’s assertion that a technology-driven model is an incorrect generalization. Our society and culture is constantly looking for ways to stereotype every subsection that possibly has a chance of being marketed to. The first step towards progression is understanding.