Selfies and Self-Awareness

Recent generations have grown up in the digital age. Every type of communication is done electronically. It is rare that the younger generation never had access to social media, internet or even a computer.

The Frontline Documentary, *Growing Up Online *discusses the topic of our generation being online. The fact that we have had access to the Internet and electronic communications for most of our lives has shaped us differently than past generations.

This documentary published in 2008 is still relevant, granted that some of the websites have fallen off of the map, it is still relevant to recent generations. The documentary talked about Myspace and Facebook and instant messaging. Though Facebook has become the predominant head of the social media empire, Myspace has fallen to the wayside.

Part of this can be attributed to changes in technology. When my generation was coming into adolescence cell phones were still fairly new. Now our phones are actual computers that we carry with us. Apps like Twitter and Snapchat have changed the way we communicate with one another.

People not only text now they can send pictures and video that are somewhat unretrievable using snapchat. Twitter however is one that allows quick blurbs to be posted continuously.

The problem with this generation growing up online is that we are often not aware of what we are doing. In the video below it shows how focused we are on communicating and checking updates that we miss the bigger picture of what is going on around us.

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As seen in this video the people are in this event and yet they aren't doing anything about the world around them. I think that the younger generation is so enveloped in the online world that it has caused them to change their outlook on the world and its values.

One report shows this idea even with younger children. These children value attention and fame above the past generations values.

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We do live in a time where everyone on social media posts what they are doing, with whom their doing it, and how. Growing up online and seeing how other people have gotten fame for doing almost nothing, like the Kardashians for example, has changed the outlook. The problem with this is everyone's so focused on the fame and attention they forget to look at the consequences of their actions.

There is a coined term that older generations sometimes use for this generation of young people, screenagers. The fact that we always have some type of screen in front of us has changed our lives completely.

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This report tells how teachers and students both have had to adjust to this new way of living. How are we to become more aware of these changes and what does it mean for our future as communicators for these people?

We all have to keep adapting and changing to the world around us but we also need to be smart about it. Most of us who grew up in the digital age know that you shouldn't answer messages asking personal information and so forth, but as the video below points out, going public can be a problem.

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The predator in this short film got all of her information from her social media accounts. So is being public all the time a danger?

It can be absolutely! The problem is that it not only affect our safety, but our futures as well. If you are a teenager posting about what party you had last weekend and police came, in the future an employer can access that because it was on social media.

I think that the documentary still is relevant in that all of its main points are problems today, the solution though is adjusting to this new age and being aware of how it is affecting our lives.