Generation 'Z'

This post may seem like a bit of a cliche joke. A play on words. To be honest I'd be half tempted to call it a joke myself except there is a worrying degree of truth in what I'm about to write.

Did you ever stop to wonder why so many films and TV programmes have been made about apocalyptic events recently? Its bizarre when you think about it. For decades the general view of the future was optimistic, you only have to watch films like 2001:Space Odyssey or listen to music like David Bowie to hear that the space programmes had really ushered in a new hope for humanity. Science fiction within thirty years though went from dreaming about vast cities on other worlds to going on over and over again about the end of this World.

There has to be a reason for all these disaster movies though, right? Is it that they simply sell well, or is there an underlying reason for it? Conditioning perhaps? I don't think that it is in anyway a coincidence that at a time of massive social and economic unease, let alone the threat of war breaking out between the West and Russia/China that these films and programmes have become common. Whilst simultaneously putting dread into the minds of the masses, it also deflects away the issues away as being part fantasy. Its like a mass media pacifier.

I'm not one to get overly paranoid. I don't trust everything I read, and neither should you, but I do frequently consider one thing. Our entire way of life could change at a moments notice. There are multiple reasons for this which I won't go into right now because each deserves its own post, but say civilization did end right now, what do you think survival rates would be?

To ponder that lets just first consider the average person living in the modern world right now. Can they read a paper map effectively? Can they a start fire with limited resources? Do they know where to find food when the supermarkets run dry? Do they know how to make stagnated water drinkable? Unfortunately there are a large percentage of people who do not know enough of these basics to ever be able to function if there was a breakdown of power and food supplies. This isn't including those who would succumb to illness and death due to a lack of antibiotics and long-term medication.

If for arguments sake the Earth was hit by some sort of EMP it would not take long for anarchy to ensue, especially in city centres. Here's something interesting to consider though. All those metropolitan arseholes who'd have a mental breakdown if the power went out longer than ten minutes would literally become the walking dead. They'd wander like a hoarde of the well known zombies for food and water until they exhausted the supplies in inner-cities. Eventually most city dwellers would die. (Probably after descending into cannibalism.) If you question whether civil unrest would occur then you need only look at the 'Black Friday Sales' scenes. If people are prepared to physically fight over something as unimportant as flat screen televisions, just imagine what they'd do for that last tin of beans on the supermarket shelf. 

And this only supports my point. People today of all ages do not know enough about the real world to be able to function outside of the civilization that has been built around them. Its a folly to become too reliant upon technology though. This reliance is only going to get worse though. 

The last few decades have had this weird generational categorisation. If you were born in the 70's you belong to Generation X. If, like me, you were born in the mid-80's or 90's you belong to the Generation Y. So far the generalisations applied to these two groups seem to be fairly correct. It worries me then that the next generation, my daughters generation, will be dubbed 'Generation Z'. 

Yes yes, I'm kind of half joking about the next generation becoming zombies. Kinda. I'm not saying they are being called Generation Z because anyone thinks they'll become zombies, but.... they might. Allow me to explain.

Most adults today already have an addiction at some level to technology. I'll hold my hands up and say sometimes I can't put my phone down either, but the up and coming 'wearables' as they've been dubbed are becoming a real concern to me. Here is why:

A company called Thync and another called Melomind are actively developing mind altering technology that supposedly chills you out (or supposedly also provides 'energy'.) Aside from the fact that you'd look like an actual wanker wearing one in the street, it draws all kinds of questions as to the safety of these devices.

They work by essentially putting small amounts of power through electrodes that stimulate neurons in your brain. Two issues here right from the start. Firstly, as its marketed as a 'leisure device' it bypasses health safety checks, not that health testing can always be trusted anyway. Secondly, obviously no long term research has been put into these to ascertain whether they would become addictive or not. 

And fuck it, I'm going to come right out and say these other two points. Brain chemistry works a certain way for a reason. If you are stressed out its because there is an underlying issue in your life that you need to resolve. Patching over it with brain stimulating devices whilst mumbling "just a bit of harmless brain alteration", is likely to have very little positive gain. Lastly, on the point of this ridiculous device, who is to say that years down the line when we've progressed further into the dystopian future hipsters actually seem to want to be bring about, that Google won't somehow hold records on how our brain functions.

I don't like it. At all. Now everything else seems to have gone digital, now even our brains can't be left alone to function as they should do. Its concerning. And obviously, I'm not talking short-term here, but long-term I think we are going to have to reign in technology to allow ourselves as a species to get back some of our normal behavior. This is just the start of wearables too, so Gods know where this will end up in the years to come.

There is also another concern that may be rearing its ugly head soon too. Virtual reality. Speaking as someone who has played computer games for years, I'll be the first to admit that games can seriously mess your head up if you're not careful. Sometimes its possible to get completely sucked into a virtual world, and virtual reality might simply make that worse. My concern is that the pro-longed absence of even seeing the room around you in your peripheral vision whilst playing something might trick your mind into thinking whatever game it is is real. Which is fine, if you're an adult, but we all know there are plenty of retarded parents who think it's acceptable for a seven year old to play Call of Duty fourteen hours a day. And this isn't me being ignorant of technology either, as I myself have had many sleepless nights where the image of Lara Croft's arse or Minecraft blocks have been imprinted in my mind.

Even more worrying than virtual reality though, is augmented reality. This is where the real concern for the future comes in. If smart phones are anything to go by, then if someone found a practical way to overlay a constant information feed over your eyes (like contact lenses) then it would really take off. I think the  only reason Google Glass never took off is because of the impractical nature of the design. Imagine a total reliance on technology where you was not required to remember even basic details like peoples names!

Now don't get me wrong. My phone is glued to my face as much as anyone else, and I love technology - all I'm saying is that even though we are obsessed with it, it's not necessarily healthy. I'm actually quite looking forward to virtual reality goggles for gaming, but I'm wary that it will be applied to too many facets of our daily life.

We are headed for some weird times over the coming decades, and I just hope actual wisdom instead of intelligence prevails in the long run. Everyone has been programmed into this fake reality we see around us - and none of us really appreciate nature for what it could do to us. So let us spare a thought for the new generation. The Z generation. Like the crappy zombie films we're used to, they might become mindless drones that cannot operate without the 'grid', but the silver lining is that every zombie film has survivors. So teach your kids properly, and there will always be hope.