The more I visit the schools and the more I am convinced that we need to talk to the children. We need to have open discussions in society. Our generation was a different generation where children never thought of being rebels. In our childhood, children would never watch even movie without the permission of their parents. Even if a child smokes cigarettes, he will give up his life but will not let his parents know about the same. Society was at the top of our heads. We never thought of defying the norms of society, and that's why choices were simple. We had to just choose whatever society endorsed without much application of the mind. If everybody is doing medical or engineering, we will also naturally choose the same. In fact, the children of our generation were more like mama's boys and daddy's girls and will happily accept whatever their parents chose for them.
Today's generation is quite different. Children. Today, have their own thought process, which may be quite different from the thought process of their parents. They have watched so many videos on the internet. They are on X and Insta. They are connected to each other on WhatsApp. They have travelled around the world. They have laptops and mobiles in their hands and know technology better than their parents. I recall struggling to learn the Basic language, MS Word and Excel while in college. The children today are experts at MS Word and Excel, while they have not even passed out of their schools. The point I am trying to make is that they have far more exposure than we have, and therefore, they have their own thought process, which in many cases is more pragmatic and technologically sound.
While the present generation is technologically far more advanced, it has come with its own share of problems. There are so many distractions, and that's why children today have a very short attention span. Nowadays, it is quite difficult for kids to watch a full-length video. They are more interested in watching YouTube shots. It has become quite difficult for them to sit down on their chairs with their books for extended hours. Thanks to Swiggy, Zomato, Flipkart, and Amazon, their lives have become quite comfortable, and they will ask a hundred questions when we ask them to study for long hours. With so many comforts and easy options available in the external world, their attention span has become very short. That is working well in the external world, but it is proving to be a disaster in the psychological world.
Our inner world is not driven by the MNCs like Zomato or Amazon, and therefore, there is no express delivery there. It's not like social media, where we will get connected to our inner selves at the click of a button. It is not like a friend's request on Facebook that will be responded to on the fly. The inner world operates in a very different manner. The more our attention is occupied with thoughts, the more difficult it is to connect to our true selves. With so many options available in the external world due to the advancement of information technology, the development of infrastructure, with so many travel destinations to explore, there is hardly any time available to reestablish that inner connection, and that's why we are moving farther away from our true selves. As a result, we are growing more fearful, insecure and developing complexes. That's why children, at a very young age, are facing a lot of psychological issues.
The coming decade will see a huge rise in the number of psychological disorders. Human beings have become guinea pigs for the MNCs. Each individual has a mobile in their hands, and the AI is going to play games with each one of us. The MNCs are going to exploit AI to their advantage very soon. It's so easy to manipulate our choices with the AI. Attention span is at its lowest in the present generation. Without that patience, an inner journey is not possible. In the absence of that inner connection, we are very vulnerable. I don't know how the present generation is going to face these psychological issues. How are they going to face the crises. Parents need to urgently have a dialogue with their children constantly. They need to develop the discrimination and wisdom of their children. However, to do the same, first, parents themselves need to have that inner connection. The best part of the present generation is that it has come out of the clutches of society and has free thinking. That's a wonderful thing. However, that free thinking needs guidance from wisdom. Why many parents fail to connect to this generation is because they use the old-fashioned and oft-rejected "authority" while talking to them. However, the young generation rejects anything that's illogical and does not make sense. The parents, too, therefore need to urgently upgrade their skills so that they can connect to this generation.
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