The "Like" Genertion and The Internet

I don't know how anyone else felt about being grouped with those mentioned in the Frontline documentary but I personally was annoyed by it.  I think they over reacted and tried to find the most extreme cases of what they deemed the generation "like."  For example have any of you ever stayed on your laptop for 5 hours straight just clicking to get more likes?  Or have any of you ever tweeted or re-shared something so much just to get a reply from a celebrity?  Or do any of you have over 100,000 followers on any website?  I'm sure that the answer is no.

However I do admit that there are times where I am concerned about people even only a few years younger than us and even our age or older in some regards.  I see friends and relatives who are only a couple years younger than us totally absorbed in their phones.  When they are with friends and family they communicate with anyone and everyone that isn't sitting right in front of them.  They are so absorbed with their smartphones it seems like they completely immerse themselves in that reality in place of everything else.  I think that these people are not a generation, but rather a minority of society.  Although there seems to be a growing number of these people especially in younger age groups adults are not exempt from trying to make technology theirs.  If anything adults are allowing this behavior amongst the youth to propagate by their parenting.  If adults were more strict on their kids to try to teach them not to become too absorbed with their smartphones and social media we wouldn't even be having this discussion.  In addition if parents were less absorbed themselves then this wouldn't be an issue.

Some other things associated with society today that annoys me are people who hide behind the Internet.  I see more and more articles discussing in particular various individuals receiving death threats over their social media.  One that I saw this week was a young female trophy hunter who went to Africa and killed a giraffe.  There was a picture of her laying next to the giraffe with a smile on her face.  Once a comedian shared the photo on Twitter it went viral and this poor woman began to receive insults and death threats from thousands of people.  Why does society feel obligated to do that to someone?  What gives you the right to say that someone deserves to die?  I am not trying to argue about the politics behind hunting I am simply using this as an example of people overstepping.  If these people tried to give her death threats in letters, in person, or over the phone is it the same?  Or do people feel like when they make these claims over the Internet it isn't as serious or it isn't a big deal? Well it is! Telling anyone their life is not worth anything is RIDICULOUS!  I don't think people think about the consequences of the people on the other side of the screen and as such don't take the Internet seriously.

Another serious issue that has arisen includes people believing everything on the Internet to be law. Hint: Not everything on the Internet is true.  I know it shocks some people to think that not everything they read is factual.  For example I have a friend that someone tried to convince for every piece of bacon he ate his life would be shortened a year... To which he replied "I'll go eat 100 pieces of bacon right now and do you think I'll die?"  I think that the era that we are in some people are way too trusting in the Internet and the content therein.  I think that people should start trying to think for themselves every once in a while and not be dependent on crazy Internet posts.

To sum it all up I think that the generation like doesn't really exist.  I think that there certainly is a younger generation who are more susceptible to the influence of technology.  However I think that the general population is becoming more involved with technology and social media.  I think that some parents deflect their children's needs off onto smartphones and tablets because they don't want to deal with it.  I also think that society is continuing to grow into the kind of place where it could become normal for everyone to be sitting in a room texting other people instead of talking with the people they are with.  We need to start drawing the line and we need to come together to teach the youth and parents that you can be abusing the Internet and social media.