Not Promising and Bleak Future for Humanity

Many people have different views towards the future, some would agree that societies around the world are evolving with better technology, development of countries, education and that with time, we will be able to solve global issues such as poverty, climate change, and many more. These people do not use facts, but use “hope” as a way to share the idea that our future as a civilization is looking bright. However, the opinions of those who oppose this idea are present as well. This group of people represent the idea that the future of humanity is bleak and is heading in a direction that does not look promising for most. These people use statistics and facts that show things like how global warming and climate change have been rising at an unprecedented rate. They show how rates of depression have skyrocketed in teens, the future generations, by 70% in the last 25 years.

Statistics don’t lie, however hopes without supports and evidence, do. Of course, no one knows what the future has in store; when taking a closer look and examining the facts between the idea of society and humanity moving towards a desirable or undesirable future, there is no doubt that we, as a people, are moving towards the side of the undesirable and that if we want to turn things around, we’d better start making big changes now. Based on information on how the younger generations who will eventually become our future generation behaves, it shows that respect and kindness for one another is being lost. Respect, kindness and selflessness are highly admired traits in Today’s society, you could ask anyone and there would be a guarantee that almost everybody would agree. These traits fit into what we call, “social norms”. This term is defined by “informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society “. In other words, it means that the way a certain population of society behaves is based on mutual understandings of what is found as acceptable by the majority. This is a scary idea because since the traits like kindness and respect are being used less and less as time has been progressing, this means that eventually these traits will be replaced by other ones such like lack of empathy and ignorance.

A study made for an article called, “Understanding Today’s Rude Teens” shows that a study was conducted between 14000 college students. The article states, “The study indicated that since the year 2000, students have become 40 percent less empathetic than 20-30 years ago. They no longer give frequent “yes” answers to questions such as “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by putting myself in their situation” and “I often worry about people who are worse off than I am”. (Karkov, 2012). So this shows that in the past decade and a half, the younger generations have already started their plummet in using the older, more classic traits for social norms. With that taken into account, once that “newer” generation grows up and raises their own children, those children will most likely take on the same traits or at the very least similar ones to their parents/role models.

Another article written for the Daily Telegraph by a radio host named Amanda Blair, helps to further reinforce the idea that societies lack of respect for one another, especially in the newer generations has been very prominent. An important piece of information to keep in mind as you read quotes taken from her article, is that she was born in 1968 so she has experience with what life and society was like in the past and what it is like in the present which makes her able to make comparisons between both time periods. Blair uses a quote that states what an important moral value was like in the past as she grew up, saying, “We were once a decent society raised on The Golden Rule, the maxim that essentially asks that we treat others as we would like others to treat ourselves”.. (Blair, 2015).

She then makes a comparison that can be viewed very easily today by just going onto any form of social media and clicking on a post where you can share opinions and states, “The erosion of manners saddens me. Social media provides a huge platform for opinion sharing, however I can’t help but be shocked by the decrease in decorum. Calling somebody a “c” word because you don’t agree with his or her stance on an issue is not “freedom of speech” or “exercising your democratic right” it’s just rude”. (Blair, 2015). This point happens so commonly that studies don’t need to be made in order to prove that it happens. All that is required is for you to look at a post and find two people who disagree. Most of the time, you will see profanity being used and the people involved trying to degrade one another for not agreeing with them. It shows how even though social media can be used for good, bad situations like this also take place daily. Speaking of social media, that is another point that is also putting humanity at risk of creating a desolate future. The idea of social media is an amazing way for people around the world to communicate with each other no doubt. Unfortunately, social media is also making people less social and also gives an opening for acts like cyberbullying to occur. There are two videos that really help to capture the idea of how social media is negatively impacting society and making us more desensitized to serious issues which, as a result, can have harmful effects on different members of the society.

The first video is called, “Can we auto correct humanity” by Prince EA, on YouTube. It is an extremely powerful video that uses facts to teach us the shocking truth about the social media that we believe is “social”. The first fact really resonates the more you think about it because it states that the average person spends 4 years of their life looking down at a screen. The facts used show how social media connects us only through screens but not in real life. It also shows how because of social media outlets being used to communicate like SnapChat, Instagram and many more, people in Today’s society who use social media are less likely to choose to communicate with others in real life but would rather do it on their devices. The second media product is yet another video on YouTube. However, this time, the topic is on cyberbullying. More specifically how far cyberbullying can go. On October 10th, 2012, an account by the name of Amanda Todd posted a video in which she seems very distressed. The video goes on and she tells her story about how she was cyberbullied without getting into too much detail, but giving enough to show the viewer the struggles she had been going through because of it and the effects it had had on her. (Self Harm, Low Self Esteem).

At the end however it she writes on a flashcard a message that makes the viewer infer that she is going to commit suicide. Those inferences would later be found to be correct. A fact that makes this even worse is that, Amanda Todd was only in grade 10 when this had happened. Of course, this is an extreme example, but it is not the first to happen, and certainly is not the last at the rate that cyberbullying has increased due to the growth of social media platforms. This example also shows the impact of how the younger, and soon to be newer, generations are affected negatively in the new present world where technology seems to be taking over. It is easy to see how in the future, more occurences like this can happen that lead to unfortunate endings and also leave one another unable to use basic skills of conversation to communicate as a result of the addiction to our devices and social norms changing to see things such as loss of sympathy and respect, replace older norms such as being polite, and respectful. If a change doesn’t happen, the future that is most definitely going to be based around technology and media, is looking fairly upsetting for humanity. This being said, solving the issue will take time because of the effects and noticeable changes already occurring globally in different societies. I believe that two big things can be done in order to help prevent an unfortunate future like one that was described above. One thing is that people should be taught how to balance the usage of social medias and be mindful while using them.

What I mean by “be mindful” is that people should learn when using it and how often they use it is appropriate and when using platforms to share opinions without being condescending on someone who does not agree in order to avoid conflict and/or to encourage being polite and respectful to each other even if you don’t know the person you are speaking to in real life. The second thing that I believe can help humanity to avoid a dark future is to have schools of all levels around the world reinforce education on manners and moral, ethical social norms that can be used in the real world. This is so that once students are put in situations in the real world, they are able to communicate with each other in a manner that influences younger generations to act in the same respectful way the older generations are to assure that ethical social norms stay in place.

Even though today’s society is instilled with many bad habits and morals, if society continues down the path it is going, the future will be an extremely undesirable place. Major changes need to take place in all societies to ensure that every future generation will be able to encourage each other in a positive way by keeping ethical moral values and good social norms in place for each generation so forth rather than having a shift in the norms where generations become a brainless population addicted to their phones, unable to communicate and show less and less respect to one another as time goes on. There is still time to help prevent the rising issues we face that threaten the future of societies within humanity, however in order to ensure success, it is imperative that we, as a people, start now.