My feed is full of adults with emotions: scared, angry, sad that children also live in a digital world. All apparently driven by a nostalgic story that everything was better before, and that the youth will go to hell “if we don’t take action”. It’s all tiresomely predictable. Every generation looks back on its childhood and glorifies it. Each generation wants to limit, ban and label the new as the cause of contemporary problems. Doesn’t anyone remember how much fuss there was about TV destroying pure young minds, and that “Baywatch” made young girls hate their bodies? When “Baywatch” came to Norway in 1991, the series received criticism for its strong focus on the body and appearance. Many believed that it could have harmful knock-on effects. Photo: Epa Before we also heard “the youth nowadays”; that we just sat inside and read magazines with indecent content and played TV games. It was feared that Nintendo could cause the next generation to rot at the roots. The brain could be destroyed by earlier technology too, but then it was square eyes and epilepsy, instead of mental illness and concentration problems. Previous technological innovations have also made us afraid of the social and societal consequences: color TV, more channels than news, walkman, video violence, mobile phones and e-books. All of this was thought to be unnecessary and could lead to an overwhelmed and lethargic population. Before this, reading people were called night owls, pale farts and bookworms with no contact with the “real world”. Free expression in the world of books was considered dangerous, immoral and passivating (“How many hours have you spent with your nose in a book in your life?”) Wonder how it went with them, somehow. With the Walkman, people could listen to music alone, which worried voices believed could lead to social isolation and alienation. Photo: Reuters Then there are the anecdotes, then. The individual destinies and stories we get so heart for. Those who were recruited into crime, sexually exploited, those who had eating disorders or harmed themselves. All these terrible social and psychological problems also existed in The Beautiful Past. And then, as now, the sinister forces of society often had the greatest impact on those who had a difficult time for other reasons and where other risks have piled up. Today, hardly a day goes by without a deeply concerned parent, expert or celebrity talking about how Screen Satan leads the growing family into temptation and misery. And then we get the stories of those who surprisingly learned that it was better with a smaller screen. An example is the chronicle about the pod who came home happily from camp school and said he wanted a mobile phone ban. It is clear that a different life is exciting for a week. If you are in a strange place with friends who have nothing to do but team building and each other, then it will be pleasant. Let’s call it the “Every time we meet” effect. Isn’t that why we go on old-fashioned cabin trips or tent trips – to experience life with simple means? Does that mean that we want an everyday life that is like camping trips? Hardly. Society cannot be turned back in time. Technology cannot be reinvented, and people’s inherent curiosity and social nature will be there anyway. Banning smartphones or social media is completely utopian, or becomes a bit like banning PCs and the internet. There are some states that are banning that kind of thing, and they are not the ones we like to be compared to. We need to have conversations about how we should use technology in the best possible way, and what requirements we should place on providers of the services in order to avoid influence we do not want. In the same way that we in Norway ban TV advertising aimed at children, advertising for smoke and alcohol, I think it is better that we focus on the content of the gadget rather than the gadget itself. And of course it’s not good for anyone to do just one thing all the time. Odd (63) should get off the sports channel and go for a walk! Color TV could lead to increased TV viewing, and people would spend more time in front of the screen instead of being with others or being active outside, believed the critics who were against introducing color TV in Norway. But the sin came to the country in 1972. Photo: news The most serious thing about all this scare-moralism-nostalgia focus on the screen, I still think, are the big and important themes that we really should tackle. There are a number of things that we know for sure affect how people feel: poverty, social differences, crime, uncertain future prospects in everything from education and work, to climate and environment, stress, war and conflict. And what about the effects of the pandemic management on our rising generation? Social isolation is documented to be harmful, in fact a recognized method of torture. The screen screeners will point out that an increase in people seeking help for mental health problems has occurred in the same period as the dreaded screens have become more common. But if many people drown and eat ice cream at the same time of the year, is the ice cream the problem? No, at least I think the most likely reasons for the challenges we see now are the good old-fashioned reasons that don’t have a quick fix. Of course, it is easier to direct the anger and despair towards something more concrete and tangible: Screen is Satan! Who will save us from evil? (then the rest can be left alone with small print). Rather, let’s build good everyday life, safe local communities, a future to look forward to. So it could be that in 10 years, we are just as unconcerned with the dangers of SoMe-Satan as we are with the dangers of TV and weekly magazines today. Send us your opinion Want to write? Feel free to contact us at news Ytring with your post. The guidelines can be found here. Published 16.11.2024, at 08.04
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Screen Satan – Utterance
