I was out with a couple ex-colleagues (still friends) the other night for a drink and a chat and we spoke a fair bit about parenting, parenting styles, the breakdown of multi-generational households and why so many people these days don't have children. And the lack of children just makes it all worse, because many people don't grow up around children, which increases the mental and emotional barriers to having children. And in my opinion, the breakdown in society has been further catalysed by all kinds of other factors that we have adopted, without thinking too much of the repercussions.
Well, many of us haven't thought about it.
For instance, my friend was saying how the uptake in mobile phones in Finland was very high and just about every child by the age of seven had one - and it was seen as a good thing. It was "embracing technology" and facilitating "digital natives" and all of that. But that opinion has changed now, as the dangers have become apparent. And then he used the words...
How could we know?
He assumed that everyone accepted this opinion because everyone he knew accepted it, however - that is not actually the case. At the time smart phones were introduced and people started pushing them to their kids, I was already talking about the dangers that are so apparent now, because it is very predictable due to the fact that we are human.
While everyone believes themselves to be a unique little snowflake, being human means that we have far more in common than we have different, and when we are looking at individual aspects based on averages, we are predominantly average. We might be better in some things, or incapable in others, but when it comes to the way we mostly function, there is little to differentiate us. We all need to eat, sleep and defecate.
Moreover, we are nearly all driven by the same basic needs and desires, as well as influenced by the same incentives. We are highly predictable, which is why the algorithms that push our behaviours are so effective. If we weren't predictable, the algorithms wouldn't be able to group and align us, as pushing what we want, when we want it becomes impossible.
We are predictably lazy.
We are lazy movers. We are lazy thinkers. Moving and thinking takes energy and because energy was hard to come by, we have evolved to conserve it where we can. We look to find easier ways to do things, and we create patterns of thought so we don't have to continually solve problems or pay attention. But, while we are lazy, we are incredibly good at finding ways not to do things - and once we have a pattern of not doing, we settle right in.
In the modern world, this translates into us increasingly becoming consumers, where we are able to feel part of something, feel knowledgeable, even when we have zero practical skill in that area. It wasn't that long ago that people with zero practical skill, were useless. But perhaps, that is still the case, it is just that we are yet to fully comprehend or acknowledge how irrelevant we are making ourselves.
There is a term called "competitive cognitive artifacts" which describes tools that make a task easier, but in so doing reduces our own ability to do the task. An easy example is a calculator used instead of the brain. The more the tools are applied, the less skill we develop and as I believe it, the more we degrade. But when it is applied to children, they don't degrade, they never develop the cognitive ability to do something in the first place. And again as I believe, this means they do not build the physical brain structures required for skills they might require in the future, like critical thinking and problem-solving ability.
But it isn't just the physical tools like calculators and screens that we have used to babysit our children, it is all the social and cultural tools also, where our habits have changed in the way we raise our children. We protect them by taking bullies out of schools, having teachers solve playground problems, cover equipment in rubber, put on knee and elbow pads and essentially wrap them in cottonwool, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Is it any wonder they are so anxious and depressed?
If a person will be so scared of looking silly making a mistake filling up their car that they would rather run out of petrol, or so scared of answering the phone that they will not get a job - is it any wonder that they would be scared of being a parent? Being a parent is scary because a parent has to take responsibility for another person's life. They have to provide and care for, do a lot of gross things and be frightened whenever their child is at risk - which is always!!!
But what we have done as a society is keep on introducing ways to make our lives "easier" without looking into the future of what an easy life leads to. Easy paths do not teach the skills required that are needed to reach potential and they do not build the cognitive and emotional capabilities to face challenge. What they do is make one soft and whenever even the dullest corner gets brushed, it hurts.
All of the tools we have created could be used for lots of good, but ultimately us being human means, most of the time they won't be. Instead, we will use the tools to make our lives easier, to do things faster, to avoid having to learn skills - because that is how we have evolved to behave. Put a kid on a computer and they don't automatically start learning to code, and someone on Instagram doesn't automatically start building a career. Because, that is not the way we behave on average.
And averages matter.
Because no matter how different you think you are, you are predominantly average.
Like me.
Taraz
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