There are two kinds of people in today’s society: “digital immigrants” and “digital natives.” Author Robert Weiss, describes a “digital native” as anyone born into the digital era and a “digital immigrant” as someone born before and had to adjust into the digital era (1). While technology advancements such as portable devices like phones and tablets, the Internet and social media, and video games affect both of these groups in some way, the vast majority is worried about how it affects the “digital natives,” the leaders of the decades to come. Some may argue that the exposure to all of this technology allows the youth to strive with the resources readily available to them. Instead, these devices such as phones and tablets, the Internet and social media, and video games are actually affecting young people in a negative way. 

 There can be some good when it comes to youth’s access to the Internet and portable devices like phones and tablets. Access to the Internet has allowed anyone to be clicks away from reading about information they could ever want to know. There are books, journals, and articles that can be downloaded as well as delivery services that can send books to a house that can save time and money (Paul 8). Youth’s access to smartphones and tablets can allow for people to stay in touch with others whenever, no matter where they are (Bauerlein Digital Divide 9). Some may say this is good, causing adolescents to stray from boredom and become engaged in something at all times, as well as that being in contact with friends and family constantly could improve communication skills because they are always talking to each other. While there can be benefits to these advancements in technology, “digital natives” aren’t taking advantage of the opportunities that sit in front of them all day while they stare into their digital device.

One of the most common, and negative effects of the Internet and social media on youth is cyber bullying. Kids go online looking to open up and broadcast their life with others, whether they are looking for help regarding a problem or simply want to keep people informed with their life. What they don’t realize is it also opens up the possibility for incredible ridicule (Pacer 2). Hannah Smith, a 14-year-old girl, went onto a popular social media site looking to express her feelings regarding her eczema and how she felt ugly (Johnson 3). Anonymous users told her to cut herself and to “Do us all a favor n kill ur self” (Johnson 3). Sadly, a month later she did. Going to social media to look for help with her personal problems, a few comments from strangers were enough to push this innocent girl over the edge. While incidents like Smith’s are rare, cyber bullying in general is not, and 43% of students report experiencing it at least once in their lifetime (Pacer 10). Kids today are looking to the Internet and social media as a way of forming their identity. They believe that they need validation from their friends and even strangers to have confidence in themselves and believe that they are okay. Instead of just being able to compare themselves to each other in the hallway at school, they are now able to do it 24/7 using social media with an unlimited amount of people. While social media and the Internet can show its negative effects very clearly, such as cyber bullying, it can also affect adolescents in a way they may not realize. 

Mark Bauerlein, 58-year-old professor of English at Emory University believes that this digital era has caused the youth to become the “dumbest generation” (4). Due to all the constant distractions going through youth’s minds, they have collectively lost an interest in history, politics, and literature. Even though the Internet and devices have made this generation dumber, it shouldn’t have been this way. Never has there been a time where there is such opportunity for education and learning (Bauerlein Digital Divide 7). But instead, the youth would rather focus on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram being the most popular to be exact in the year 2016 according to a survey done by lifewire.com (Bauerlein 8). Rather than being productive and learning about something that really matters, young people would rather read about the latest gossip surrounding the people they know, and stay up to date with pop culture (Bauerlein 13). This problem stems from the idea that every young person can’t miss out on anything and that keeping up with these things will make them “cool in school” (Bauerlein 13). In on of Bauerlein’s classes, he tells his college students that they are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the speaker of the U.S. House is. The response he got from a voice in the crowd was “ ‘American Idol’ is more important” (Bauerlein 15). This is exactly what Bauerlein is talking about when describing the affect of this peer-to-peer activity as what he calls the “pull of immaturity” (15). The only people the youth are becoming connected with on the internet are people the same age and it is a bunch of mimicry and judging, instead of using their time to connect with teachers and other adult figures that could teach us things. While “digital native’s” focus on drama within social media is a negative psychological effect causing them to become dumber, there are also negative behavioral effects that branch from media.  

Children and Adolescents have been exposed to media their entire lives, which can sometimes affect behavior, especially substance use. Today, young people in the United States grow up watching media where $22 billion is spent marketing drugs ($13 billion on tobacco, $5billion on alcohol, and $4 billion on prescription drugs), which has been shown to have a significant impact on them (Strasburger 12). It doesn’t stop with just advertisements though; Adolescents can also see considerable drug and alcohol content in videos on the Internet and in movies, 70% of which portray tobacco smoking (Strasburger 12). When young people see commercials with their favorite actor promoting an alcohol company or their favorite music artist doing drugs in a music video they think repeating those actions will as Bauerlein would say, “[Make them] cool in school.” Longitudinal prospective studies have shown that children in the fifth- to eighth grade exposed to movie smoking can be predicted to smoke 1 to 8 years later (Strasburger 13). Youth grow up and develop into the people they have seen and respect; therefore if they can identify with a storyline and a character that smokes in it, their intention to smoke goes up. The exposure of substance use on youth is one of the more serious behavioral effects that come from media because it can affect a person’s overall health; but it’s not the only one. 

Another behavioral effect that can disturb “digital natives” health that happens because of constant exposure to media is sexual behavior. A lot of the sexual behavior problems come from the realm of pornography that floods the Internet (Brown 5). In a national sample of 1500 10- to 17-year-olds, nearly half had been exposed to pornography on the Internet within the last year (Brown 5). The amount of pornography that is on-line is ridiculous, making it hard to navigate between cites without encountering a sexually explicit ad. Longitudinal studies now exist that relate heavy exposure to sexual content in media with more rapid progression of sexual activity, earlier coital behavior, greater risk for and unplanned pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease (Brown 6). One explanation for this behavior may be because of the role “superpeer” that media plays today (Brown 6). What this means is that young people are so influenced by media that when they see this sexual content they think sex is regular and risk free. Media can also provide sexual information to adolescents, shaping their beliefs about how to behave in a romantic relationship (Brown 6). The problem with this is that everything these adolescents will find online isn’t accurate. Therefore they are being exposed to non-sense and taught lies when it comes to sexual behavior. With media constantly presenting sexual content to young people, their attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors regarding sexual activity will continue to be mislead, leading to possible health and behavior problems that can have serious consequences later in life. 

Digital devices and their access to the Internet and social media are also causing a generation gap, a theory that is similar to Bauerlien’s idea that “digital natives” are becoming dumber. Robert Weiss, Senior Vice President of Clinical Development with Elements Behavioral Health believes that the constant distractions clouding youth’s mind are causing them to become disconnected from the rest of the world, especially their elders (Weiss 4). He begins his article by talking about 2 grandparents who take their grandchildren, 14 and 11 years old, out to dinner one night (Weiss 1). Excited to catch up with what is going on in their grandchildren’s lives, they soon realize that the kids are completely distracted by their Ipad and IPhone, posting their whereabouts on Facebook and Twitter (Weiss 1). As they took a glance around the restaurant, they saw a group of 20 year olds sitting down also for dinner. All of them except for 2 where doing the same exact thing that the grandchildren were doing (Weiss 2). They were all face deep in their smart phones. For this reason exactly, many refer to these “digital natives” as the “lost generation” (Weiss 2). While the grandparents thought it was somewhat rude that the kids were giving them no attention, the kids as well as the other table of 20 year olds could see nothing wrong. These young people have been so attached to technology their entire lives that it’s the only way they know how to live. For that reason, they have a different definition of what it means to be respectful, attentive, and how to communicate with others (Weiss 3). In a Clinical Study released in 2010, they found that half young Americans logged onto social media at least once per day, and a quarter of them logging on 10 times or more a day (O’Keefe 2). In the same year, a study released by Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 3 quarter of American teens owned a cell phone with 88% texting regularly. This same survey was conducted 2 years later and the numbers continued to rise (O’Keefe 2). It is clear that the more technology progresses, the more young people become attached to their digital devices. Results in that study also found that the main way of communication for “digital natives” was text messaging, extremely surpassing phone calls and face-to-face communication. “Digital Immigrants” on the other hand tend to prefer live, in person interactions settling for at least a phone conversation where they can hear the other person’s voice (Weiss 15). Rather than waiting to be able to talk on the phone, or see someone in person, young people find it easier and more convenient to send someone a text and wait for their response. While some may say this isn’t a big deal, it is teaching the youth that physically communicating with people isn’t necessary, which is something they’ll learn they need to be skilled with later in their life. The more adolescents depend on their digital devices the larger the generation gap becomes and the more bad habits are formed. 

Not only has this technology made the youth “dumber”, but it has also made them lazier. Bauerlein describes the Internet’s new nature as a place where people go to “seek out what they already hope to find, and they want it fast and free, with a minimum of effort” (65). When these young people go online, they are able to do anything, causing them to stray away from anything that bores or challenges them. Bauerlein states that constant Internet use, “Habituates them to juvenile mental habits,” and destroys any desire to think critically about a topic (66). Because of these strings of bad habits and juvenile behaviors, the youth are in return becoming more and more disconnected from the “adult” world. This includes culture, tradition, history and even the ability to sit down for more than a couple minutes and read an article or book. In return, it is causing these young people to become a community that consistently has the issue of illiteracy, bad spelling, and endless posting on social media, causing confusion between the things that are important and what aren’t (Bauerlein 66). While bad spelling may seem like a problem to most adult figures, it isn’t to the youth. On social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, people are ridiculed for coherent paragraphs and proper spelling. Instead, “text” talk and abbreviations are encouraged which can have a negative affect on these young people’s overall writing skills (Bauerlein 68).  What this endless posting and need for social media has created is a narcissistic and self-absorbed society (Bauerlein 68). Every thing important to the young people of today is all about them. Whether it’s ranting about their problems on twitter or posting a selfie to Instagram, everything the youth really focuses on revolves around them. While it may not seem like a big deal to “digital natives”, it really can become one, especially like when Bauerlein says half of his English students would rather focus on what is going on with them on social media than pay attention in class. As youth turn to the Internet and social media as a way of entertainment and distraction from the real world they in return become lazier and more self-absorbed; but the problems don’t stop there. 

Another huge problem concerning the youth when it comes to Internet use is the topic of plagiarism. As a result of laziness, poor writing and spelling skills, and the lack of critical reading stemming from Internet and social media use, the youth is turning to plagiarism to save time and effort on tasks that require learning and thinking critically (Paul 23). Peter Paul coincides with the idea from Bauerlein that adolescents are becoming lazier human beings, lacking the desire or even effort necessary in order to think independently about a topic and reach a deeper understanding (23). It is so easy today for young people to go on the Internet and use Google to find summaries of the information they are supposed to be researching, like the websites Sparknotes and Cliff Notes. Even after reading these summaries and shortcutting the process of learning information on their own, young people continue to simply copy and paste sections from other writers trying to take credit for their work. Whether it is because they simply don’t know how to construct writing on their own, or just don’t have the effort to do it, this epidemic has become extremely popular within the past couple of years (Paul 23). It is sad because instead of taking advantage of the immense amount of information and resources online, young people would rather not spend the time to create things using their own words. This just shows how the Internet is causing the youth to act in a shallow manor, settling for efficient retrieval of information instead of making them active and informed members with the rest of society.

Straying away from the topic of portable devices and social media and the Internet, video games have become a hinder on the “digital native” generation. Director, Delaney Rutson, talks about this concerning problem in her movie Screenagers, which gives insights from children and parents about how the youth feel towards the topic of video game consoles, and games on platforms such as iPhones and iPads. In all, it has become very clear that kids would rather spend their time playing video games that have little to no benefit on their development into adults rather than things that could benefit them like school and extracurricular activities (Rutson). Many parents found that their kids lie about doing homework or just don’t care enough to do it because they would rather spend their time in front of a television playing games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto (Rutson). Not only does this mean it is taking their attention from things that matter, but it is causing them to care more about violent video games that center around killing other people and have factors such as drugs and prostitution. Cases have become so severe that children will tell their parents they are sick in order to stay home and play these games all day (Rutson), showing what their priorities really are. This is a perfect example of what Bauerlein means when he says “digital natives” are becoming lazier, straying away from anything that challenges them and turning to a simple form of entertainment; video games in this instance. As video games evolve they will continue to grab the attention of young people and take the focus away from school and other learning/developing opportunities; but with a change in the way young people feel towards the things that matter in life or how parents monitor their kid’s activities this can be prevented. 

There is no doubt that the advances in technology could benefit “digital natives” in a positive way, but because of the way these young people are using the advancements in phones, tablets, social media, the Internet, and video games, it is affecting them rather in a negative way. The more adolescents drift to social media and the Internet to express themselves the bigger the problem of cyber bullying becomes, as well as exposing themselves to substance use and sexual content which has been proven to cause negative behavioral effects later in life. In order to “stay cool in school” youth gives all their attention to pop culture within social media and the Internet rather than things that matter causing them to become dumber. Being born into the digital era, “digital natives” have created a dependency on their electronic devices, forming a generation gap based on the way they act.  Instead of taking advantage of the resources readily available to them, this generation is becoming lazier, giving no attention to anything that challenges them, and creating the problems of plagiarism and young people who’d rather play video games then learn and develop as a person. If these “digital natives” aren’t exposed to what is happening to their generation, they may become lost forever. Not only does it affect them, but also the generations that will follow.
