Does Electronic Communication Lead to Isolation?

High school students in the East Coast interviewed by MIT professor Sherry Turkle told her that instead of feeling connected to friends by constant texting, they feel lonely because of the lack of face-to-face focused attention, hence the title of her book Alone Together. They also feel pressure to respond quickly to a text and sometimes are confused by the real intent of a message without being able to read someone’s facial expressions. Teens “write for effect” on Facebook, trying to show they’re cool. They also grew up with multitasking parents who talked on their cell phones and texted, some even at the family dinner table. I’ve noticed this focus on the device rather than the child when I take my grandson to playgrounds. I’m the only adult who goes down the slides with my little one. Turkle reported that it’s common to hear children and teens describe the frustration of trying to get their parents’ attention.[i] In her conversations with therapists, they tell Turkle about the increasing number of patients who come in “detached from their bodies and seem close to unaware of the most basic courtesies. Purpose-driven, plugged into their media, these patients pay little attention to those around them.”[ii]

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[i] Sherry Turkle. Alone Together. Basic Books, 2011, p. 268.

 

[ii] Ibid, p. 293

 

Who Participated in the Arab Spring Revolutions?

Although youth led the revolution, looking at the main supporters of the revolution, it wasn’t youth, according to a statistical study of participants in the Egyptian (sample size of 98 people) and Tunisian Revolutions (192).[i] Only 8% of students who were surveyed were active in demonstrations in Egypt, compared to 35% in Tunisia. Only 13% of the Egyptian demonstrators were aged 18 to 24, (compared to 35% in Tunisia) and 31% were aged 25 to 34 (25% in Tunisia). The authors concluded, “These simple statistics give lie to folk theories that the Arab revolutions were caused primarily by youth frustration.” Keep in mind that only 8% of the Egyptian sample reported participating in the demonstrations, compared to 16% in Tunisia, so the authors were working with a small sample.

In Egypt, using data from the Second Wave Arab Barometer administered in 2011, the three authors concluded that the Tunisian Revolution was comprised of a younger and more diverse class background than in Egypt. Both revolutions were supported disproportionately by the educated middle class and by males (76.5% of the demonstrators in Egypt and 79% in Tunisia). In Egypt the participants were more likely to be middle-aged, middle class, professional, and religious. In Tunisia the rebels were younger (likely to be students), more secular and from more diverse class backgrounds.

Although the outcome of the uprisings was free elections, the primary motivation for rebels—including youth– in both countries was economic grievances, and to a lesser extent anger about corruption, rather than a desire for democracy. In Egypt, the second greatest motivation was they were against Mubarak’s son Gamal as heir to the throne. Being unemployed wasn’t a significant predictor of participation in either country and the poorest people had the lowest rate of participation. For the minority of rebels who prioritized democracy, in Egypt they were likely to have participated in civil society associations, while in Tunisia they had higher levels of income. Few in either country wanted an Islamic regime, but the participants were not less religious than non-activists in the sample. The fact that democracy was not the top goal helps explain why Islamic parties were elected in both countries.

Despite young people’s beliefs that they made the revolution, a Harvard scholar agreed with the Princeton scholars that increasing support for democracy by the middle class was the main force behind the revolution.[ii] Ishac Diwan based his conclusion on the 2000 and 2008 World Value Surveys that showed “little inter-generational differentiation” in Egypt by 2008. Support for democracy jumped from 24% to 52% over the survey period. He believes that class has more impact than other explanations for increasing support for democracy and thus the Arab Spring: modernization (secular rational values), the youth bulge (associated with less democracy and more political violence), splits within the governing coalition as when the army supported the uprising, political Islam, or conflict between the rich and the poor over resources with the latter in favor of democracy.

Diwan argues that the middle class was motivated by the rise in skilled unemployment and frustration over economic inequality to abandon support for the regime. He included educated youth in the middle class and their more modern views. He concludes, “While the movement towards democratization was initiated by the youth, it spread among the poor and especially the middle class by 2008,” partly due to the Muslim Brotherhood’s support of democracy starting with the 2005 elections.

Two other academics use their data to emphasize the impact of expansion of education and rising expectations combined with job scarcity.[iii] This combination creates discontent, plus an unresponsive autocratic government, equals the uprising of the Arab Spring. The key role of education is enhanced by the finding that educated people are more likely to be politically active. A poll conducted in Egypt in April 2011 asked participants in the protests what motivated them—64% cited “low living standards/lack of jobs,” while only 19% mentioned lack of democracy. This seems to conflict with Diwan’s emphasis on class and desire for democracy although the middle class is more likely to be educated. When I asked him about this, he emailed, “My results do not contradicts theirs – I find that democracy is a means to an end, and that most people that shifted from support for “order” in 2000 to support for democracy in 2008 have done so because of their grievances.” Regarding youth, the co-authors state that the not-so-young group aged 25 to 39 were a bigger share of the population in countries where uprisings occurred and they suffered from the high unemployment rate. The authors suggest that this formula for revolution can be applied to other countries in the future.

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[i] Mark Beissinger, Amaney Jamal, and Kevin Mazur, “Who Participated in the Arab Spring? A Comparison of Egyptian and Tunisian Revolutions.” Princeton University, APSA conference paper, 2012.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2108773

[ii] Ishac Diwan, “Age or Class? Leading Opinions in the Wake of Egypt’s 2011 Popular Uprisings,” Youth Policy, December 2012.

http://www.youthpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/library/2012_Social-Economic_Arab-Spring_Youth_Middle-Class_Eng.pdf.

[iii] Filipe Campante and Davin Chor, “Why was the Arab World Poised for Revolution?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 26, No. 2, Spring 2012, pages 167-188.

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.26.2.167

 

Loss of non-violent activism in Egypt?

After two years of ongoing conflict with the Morsi regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, some young people turned to civil disobedience such as the general strike supported by around 10,000 people in Port Said the end of January, 2013. They were protesting the court’s rulings about the soccer riot the year before. Others gave up on non-violent protest after numerous accounts of police kidnapping, torture, beating, and aiming their bullets at the protesters’ eyes. The catalyst was the police attack on a peaceful sit-in at the Presidential Palace in Cairo in December 2012. Five—or some say 10–demonstrators were killed and sparked “a generation born of the blood of the martyrs.” The faces of these youths are painted on Cairo walls. Hassan, 20, an engineering student and co-administrator of a Facebook page, explained to a reporter, “After the palace events we saw that the Brotherhood were very organized. We had to organize ourselves. Basically, the idea is to defend the revolutionaries” and the spirit of the revolution.

A month later the Black Bloc announced its formation via the Internet. A video filmed in Alexandria at night with a hard rock audio background proclaimed its opposition to a religious dictatorship, a “fight against the fascist regime and their armed wing. Get ready for hell. Chaos against injustice.” Their Facebook page quickly got over 35,000 fans. The roots of Black Bloc go back to young people wearing black clothes and black mask who were willing to destroy property to protest nuclear plants (Germany, 1980s), the World Trade Organization (Seattle, 1990, broke windows and spray painted graffiti), and Black Bloc members breaking windows at Occupy demonstrations in the US (Oakland 2011). In Egypt, they’re not anarchists although some of their black flags carried in demonstrations include the letter “A” for anarchy. It includes female members.

Their goals are to change the new constitution with its attempt to institute Shariah law, to establish secular democracy instead of “fascist tyrants,” and to protect women, foreigners and others harassed on the streets. They make their own Molotov cocktails, firebombs, and grenades and some members have shotguns. The Black Bloc acknowledges attacks on Muslim Brotherhood offices in various cities on its multiple Facebook pages. It also has its own rap song. Black baklavas are sold on the streets for who ever wants to join the demonstrations. Some wear gas masks or Guy Fawkes masks used by the group Anonymous. A participant in the Jan25 uprising told reporter Jared Maslin, “I think whoever is behind them is very immature. All they’ve done is given the government more excuses to clampdown on protests.”[i]

Blogger Gigi Ibrahim concluded on a positive note, “People have found their voice, they are not afraid and they know their way onto the streets.” Much work remains as the military controls much of the economy, many officials are ex-generals, it is funded by over a billion dollars from the US each year, and insists on shaping the constitution to keep some of its power. Youth succeeded in making a revolution but not in long-term planning.

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[i] Jared Malsin. “Egypt’s Black Bloc—An Exclusive Interview,” HBO Vice,

http://www.vice.com/read/we-met-some-members-of -egypts-black-bloc

 

Poor Health Outcomes in the US

Money doesn’t guarantee health. Even though the US spends more on health care than other countries, they are less healthy than people in comparable countries and have a shorter life expectancy, according to a report by the US national Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.[i] The US loses more years of life to alcohol and other drugs. Many of these health problems disproportionately affect children and adolescents. US teens have the highest rate of pregnancies of affluent countries and are more likely to have sexually transmitted diseases. Deaths from injuries and homicides are higher than in comparable countries, as is obesity.

Kids in wealthy countries suffer from obesity and lack of exercise. Obesity levels doubled in every region of the world between 1980 and 2008, contributing to increased rates of diseases such as cancer and diabetes, according to the World Health Organization.[ii] The highest obesity rates are in English-speaking countries and Mexico.[iii] The health costs associated with about 12 million obese American children are huge, including the increase of diabetes. Childhood obesity rates have climbed in the US for 30 years, with the exception of cities like New York City, Philadelphia and Los Angeles that developed programs such as standards for healthy foods in school cafeterias. Overeating junk food and lack of exercise contribute to the fact that American men ranked at the bottom of life expectancy and women only one step from the bottom in a 2011 study of 17 industrialized nations. The gap has widened in the past three decades rather than improved.[iv]

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[i] “Americans Have Worse Health Than People in Other High-Income Countries,”National Academy of Sciences, January 9, 2013.

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=13497

[ii] Simeon Barnett, “Global Obesity, Hypertension Rates Rise, WHO Says,” Bloomberg.com, May 16, 2012.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-16/global-obesity-hypertension-rates-rise-who-says.html

[iii] “Why Are 6 of Top 7 Fattest Countries English-Speaking Ones?” Medical News Today, September 24, 2010. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/202473.php

[iv] Jim Toedtman, “Face the Mortality Gap,” AARP Bulletin, March 2013.

http://pubs.aarp.org/aarpbulletin/201303_DC?pg=3#pg3

New influences on Youth, according to Dewey and Brison

Youth interviewed for my book on how global youth are transforming our future report that just because adults were once teenagers, it doesn’t mean they understand today’s teens because life is different now. The context youth face is described by editors Susan Dewey and Karen Brison as follows. New influences are access to global trends that stress individualism and consumerism made possible by Internet, mass media and mobile phones. Migration or warfare separates youth from their parents. Mass education takes children out of the home and away from family labor may impact socialization of the students differently than what the family values. Other influences are NGOs in developing areas teach “youth agency” emphasizing rights, such as the right for children to go to school rather than have to work or girls’ right to be empowered. They are targeted by some religious groups such ad evangelicals. Youth also have to cope with increasing unemployment rates and reduced government support that followed neoliberal restructuring programs to pay national debts in the 1980s, increasing gaps between the rich and the poor, and being AIDS orphans. Dewey and Brison maintain that young people’s task in facing all these modern changes is to define their own special gendered identities within their local cultures. Developing nations also aim to define their cultural identities; “ideas about children and youth are integral to national and regional attempts to define self relative to former colonizers and wealthier nations.”

 

Susan Dewey and Karen Brison, editors. Super Girls, Gangstas, Freeters, and Xenomaniacs. Syracuse University Press, 2012.

What drives future social change according to Al Gore

Al Gore identifies the six revolutionary drivers of global change in his book of that name as:

*An interconnected global economy and electronic communications grid. This leads to “the awakening of the Global Mind” or “Earth Inc.” to reform inequities.

 

*Power shifting from West to East, from nations to private groups, and from politics to markets. This shift is associated with dysfunctional governance in the US and the world community and with increasing inequality between rich and poor in both developed and developing nations–with the exception of Latin America.[i] In the US, the top 1% has more wealth than the bottom 90% and Congress can’t make laws without permission from lobbyists. Democracy and capitalism have been hacked. The global recession of 2008 resulted in the loss of 27 million jobs.

 

*Unsustainable growth in population and consumption of resources, plus climate change. About a quarter of the 90 million tons of pollution we put into the atmosphere daily will last more than 10,000 years. Gore advocates starting with a tax on carbon omissions to reduce global warming.

 

*New science technologies that permit seizing control over evolution, including nanotechnology, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence.[ii]

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[i] Al Gore. The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. Random House, 2013, p. 9.

 

[ii] v

 

Summary: Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World

Shereen El Feki. Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World. Pantheon Books, 2013.

 

For many in the Arab world, Western values include homosexuality, sex before marriage, mixing of the sexes, women’s liberation and pornography. They’re believed to undermine Islam and traditional Arab values, observed Shereen El Feki. She spent two years interviewing Arabs about sex for her book Sex and the Citadel.[i] The irony, she adds, is that discussion of sexual pleasure and “so much of what they brand as dangerous foreign ideas were features of the Arab-Islamic world long before they were embraced by Western liberalism.”[ii] She notes the fear of Western ideas was coupled with a feeling of inferiority that followed Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 and the British occupation from 1882 to 1952. The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s, Hassan al-Banna taught that part of the reason for loss of political power was Egyptian’s sexual immorality and that the solution was to follow Shaira law. (Surveys indicate about a third of Arab young men are sexually active before marriage, compared to about 20% of young women).[iii]

Most Egyptian young women now cover their hair, while their mothers and grandmothers didn’t and could wear short skirts without being harassed. In the 1960s and ‘70s sex was an accepted aspect of films until the rise of Islamic conservatism and official censorship. A return to Islamic fundamentalism was a form of protest against dictatorship, the most extreme form taught by the Salafi movement. Soon after Mubarak was dethroned, Salafi squads of morality police—similar to those in Saudi Arabia—correcting hand-holding couples, etc.

She found a general lack of sex education by either family or schools, leading to many complaints about sexual satisfaction, supported by larger surveys of Egyptians.[iv] Widespread female genital mutilation doesn’t help. A Population Council survey of more than 15,0000 young people under age 30 found that 82% of female respondents are circumcised, with a declining rate for younger girls, although most respondents (64%) think it’s a necessary custom.[v]  It’s considered necessary to cool women’s sexual desire so she won’t want sex before marriage or be too demanding of her husband. Most young people don’t discuss puberty and sex with their parents.

El Feki suggests that authoritarian government requires the same kind of patriarchal family life where the father rules and sex before marriage is controlled and prohibited. Although the nation overthrew its father figure, “the nation’s young people may find that it’s more difficulty to move away from home than it was to get Mubarak out of office.” [vi] More than three-quarters of both young men and women believe that a woman must obey her husband’s orders and two-thirds agreed that wife battery is justified in some situations. When asked about what they were looking for in a spouse, number one was “polite,” meaning well brought up, followed by being religious. Education is also valued for both sexes. Expressions of love are not common between spouses, despite being sung about in popular songs and music videos.[vii] The main focus on the first year of marriage is producing a child. El Feki reports that media—women’s magazines, TV talk shows, newspapers and the Internet—frequently talk about “the trouble with marriage. It’s hard to see how democracy can flourish in a society if its constitutional and cultural cornerstone in the family is so undemocratic.”[viii]

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[i] Shereen El Feki. Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World. Pantheon Books, 2013, p. 6.

[ii] Ibid., p. 294.

[iii] Ibid., p. 97.

[iv] Ibid, p. 50.

[v] “Survey of Young People in Egypt,” Population Council, 2010.

http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/2010PGY_SYPEPrelimReport.pdf

[vi] Ibid., p. 287.

[vii] El Feki, p. 63.

[viii] Ibid., p. 91

 

A Chinese Student Reports

A  Chinese univesity student’s thoughts on money and government:

Materialism:

I’m not willing to spend one more dollar except for necessities, that’s not because I don’t have that money, that’s because I want to save, I’m not the guy who spoils money and is living in a heaven-like house as they believe. The whole family, my parents and grandparents, told me to rely on myself and support myself after graduation. With my children I wouldn’t care about their grades, but about their personality, they shouldn’t be selfish and mean. I won’t expect my son to be very powerful and rich.

Government:

Everyone is questioning government policy, but most teenagers care more about their benefits rather than the country. They do complain about unfair policies. If they had the same benefits with those special people they wouldn’t complain. I’m different from my friends because I’m rich enough and I’m able to get out of the system. People hate powerful and rich people, so after they realized I’m able to go abroad to study, some of them came to fawn on me, some just say “Oh, your father is a rich guy” (meaning they believe I have no achievements and abilities). I know those are not actually real friends, my friends love me and I love them, we understand each other. I’m not willing to spend one more dollar except for necessities, that’s not because I don’t have that money, that’s because I want to save, I’m not the guy who spoils money and is living in a heaven-like house as they believe. The whole family, my parents and grandparents, told me to rely on myself and support myself after graduation. With my children I wouldn’t care about their grades, but about their personality, they shouldn’t be selfish and mean. I won’t expect my son to be very powerful and rich.

I’m not sure if I was critical of the government or not before coming to the States two years ago, I can’t really remember. Two things really changed me–Sina microblog and the journey to America. Lots of famous people like Kaifu-Lee (who is well known in China, he used to work for Microsoft and Google) have microblogs. I can use their ideas for reference. All kinds of people have microblogs, I witness them and I can analyze and enrich my knowledge. For the journey to the States, the open Internet is the most terrible enemy for Chinese government, and I finally learned why. We can’t get Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but the faded corner of those dark historical issues could be discovered anytime. I just didn’t know why they have to “whitewash” themselves when I was in China, but now I get information more or less. I don’t work for any organization or individuals that are against Chinese government, but those things are really awful.

My generation is more open, can receive more information. The last generation experienced the change to the new China since 1949, whereas we got the information from textbooks. We only know what the government wants us to know. I only heard about Tiananmen Square after I came to the US. It depends on your education and what your parents want. Fro me I want to earn lots of money and I also want democracy.

High School Life:

We do nothing but study in high school. We get up at 6 am, to bed at the school at 11 pm, we go home 5:40 pm on Saturday, and come back to school at 8 am on Sunday. In the third year [senior year] we get rid of Saturday night. We have two weeks summer break and New Year’s. You get used to that lifestyle. We have PE class but often a teacher will take it away for math, chemistry, or physics except when it’s raining, and they he asks if we want PE. The boys play basketball during breaks, 10 to 15 minute break between classes. Girls prefer to stay in the classroom and chat. My father taught me the importance of exercise—playing tennis. Our teacher said it’s not good for kids not to have PE but we have so many kids, so much competition to study hard and get a good grade, and compete with richer kids. Parents push kids to study harder and harder. Zheyu, 20, m, China

War on Youth?

Author Mike Males list the myths about violent, drugged, morally challenged US youth, and defends the reality of good youth behavior. He blames the myths on adult bad behavior. He ascribes adult fear as partially due to the increasingly multi-racial and less affluent youth. Males maintains that, “The rapidly deteriorating behavior of American grownups (particularly aging Baby Boomers) in both personal and social realms has led to a crisis of adulthood in which youth is the target of displaced fury.”[i] Researcher Don Tapscott also believes that the reason for the harsh criticism of youth is a generation gap. The individualistic and self-centered Baby Boomers are afraid of change that youth bring with their use of electronic media and ability to collaborate. Therefore Boomers criticize youth for being “dull, celebrity-obsessed, net-addicted, shopaholic exhibitionists.”[ii]

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[i] Mike Males. Framing Youth: Ten Myths About the Next Generation. Common Courage Press, 1999.

[ii] Don Tapscott. Grown Up Digital. McGraw Hill, 2009, p. 289.

Professor Henry Giroux agrees that youth are unfairly blamed and that there’s an escalating war on youth, but rather than blaming a generational struggle, he faults neoliberal or casino capitalism. The wealthy don’t want people questioning the economic system that accumulates power in the hands of the few. Neoliberals push for privatization, reduction in government services and regulations of finance, and “militarization of the entire society.” [i]What sets aside young people is they’re the first generation to be exposed to neoliberal propaganda all their lives with its “near pathological disdain for community, public values, and the public good.” The culture of competitiveness and consumption  leaves their future security in doubt.[ii]

The 1% are afraid of youth’s push for democracy, open discussion, and creation of alternative support systems, as evidenced in the overly violent police response to the Occupy movement and youths branded as terrorists in a “war against youthful protesters.”[iii] Giroux believes we live in a “neoliberal culture of cruelty.” The OccupyArrests.com website reports that 7,732 people were arrested by the end of February 2013.

The 1% is disassembling social safety nets and freedom of speech globally under the guise of austerity and protection from terrorists. They fear youth who are “producing new ideas, generating a new conversation, and introducing a new political language.”[iv] Young people like those who participated in the Occupy movement value the social sharing rather than individual competition and they question “banal fantasies of consumption.”[v] Especially minority youth are considered a threat to adults, housed in prison-like schools and then actual prisons, resulting in a culture that “cannibalizes its own young.” He advocates that young activists reclaim higher education as a place for critical thinking and questioning the existing power dynamic, as it may be one of the few public institutions left where this dialogue can occur.

As Indian author Arundhati Roy said in an interview after visiting Occupy Wall Street in 2011, that “it seems to me to be introducing a new political language into the United States, a language that would be considered blasphemous only a while ago…reigniting a new political imagination…. an imagination outside of capitalism, as well as communism.”[vi] She urged that protesters be aware of a global pattern “that their being excluded from the obscene amassing of wealth of US corporations is part of the same system of the exclusion and war that is being waged by these corporations in places like India, Africa and the Middle East.”

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[i] Henry Giroux. Youth in Revolt: Reclaiming a Democratic Future. Paradigm   Publishers, 2013, p. xiii.

[ii] Ibid, p. 135.

[iii] Ibid, p. xi.

[iv] Ibid, p. xvii

[v] Ibid, p. 125.

[vi] Arun Gupta, “Arundhati Roy,” The Guardian, November 30, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/30/arundhati-roy-interview

 

Are Young Adults More Stressed?

Millennials (ages 18 to 33) are experiencing increasing stress—higher than the national norm–with work as the main source of difficulty, followed by money and relationships.[i] On a 10-point scale, the 2012 average was 4.9, while it was 5.4 for Millennials. It makes sense that stress is depressing. The online survey of over 2,000 adults found that Millennials are more likely than other age groups to be told by a health care provider that they have depression (19%) or anxiety disorder (12%). Their most popular coping mechanisms are music (59%), exercise (51%) and spending time with family and friends (46%). They were more likely than other age groups to cope with relationships (vs. an average of 39%).

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[i] Sharon Jayson, “Who’s Feeling Stressed?”, USA Today, February 7, 2013.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/06/stress-psychology-millennials-depression/1878295/