There is a new digital divide, and it's very different to the old one.
So...brain rot is Oxfords word of the year huh? Considered the "deterioration of an individuals mental capacity due to overconsumption of (particularly online) frivolous material", brain rot has made the leap from Gen Z slang to the mainstream.
Photo credit “Digital Information World”. AIs may have been harmed in the making of this image.
According to Pew, most young people1 and and significant minority of adults2 are now online “almost constantly” and all are now online daily. Further, most US teens were reporting spending more time on schooling (which involves constant screen time) and less time outdoors and doing “leisure” activities3 even before the acceleration of negative trends caused by COVID.
Oxford doesn’t publish their WOTY in a vacuum. They track societal shifts, and wait until a concept bubbles up into the mainstream, at which point they kind of just, make it official. What they are tracking here is the unintended, but entirely predictable outcome, of an effort that has been underway for a very long time now.
We’ve (the collective we, and in particular the we that is concerned about education and youth development) have spent the best part of 30 years making sure every kid and teen has access to an internet connected device. We did so without any clear, overarching, guiding philosophy other than a techno-optimistic mantra of “it’s the way of the future”. The loudest (and still usually the only voices) in the room have been the tech salesmen, and those whose job security depends on an ongoing cycle of tech upgrade and implementation. AKA people who have a focus on a short-term profit motive, not a long term individual and societal health motive. And those who should have those longer term outcomes in mind have been complicit, happily buying the hype.
"I swear it's Springfields only choice"
The decision makers who have poured countless billions of taxpayer funds into the pockets of tech company founders and shareholders did so with the best of intentions. They were “closing the digital divide”. The gulf between those who could had a device and could access the internet, and those who did not. Between those with the skills and tools to participate (note, I didn’t say thrive. Participate…) in the digital economy, and those who were “left behind”. They did an excellent job. Of closing the digital divide. But there was, until recently, little thought or attention given to any outcomes besides closing the digital divide.
Kids learning outcomes. Impacts on communities, social norms, democracy. Individuals mental health. None of this was contemplated in any serious way prior to the rollout of the most world changing technology we’ve ever seen. If you want to build a new apartment building near a wetland, you have to do all kinds of studies to gauge the impacts on the local environment. Want to launch a new pharmaceutical? You’re looking at years of trials and data collection to determine the costs vs benefits. Did we do any of that with the biggest tech advances of the last 30 years. Nope.
Instead, we've happily bought the hype, but have avoided opening the envelope to see the bill. In hindsight the outcome is predictable. The attention economy, the digital ecosystem, pursued the designed incentives. Attention was chopped up, repackaged, commodified. Content drifted towards emotional valence, shock, and lowest common denominator virality. AI entered the scene and started pumping out slop at such a rate that human created content was swiftly swamped in a sea of garbage.
But some folks have trial and errored, intuited, done enough background, conducted research, or otherwise figured out there are major, massively expensive, flaws with the state and trend of the information/attention economy. Organizations like device-free summer camps. Individual artists and craftsmen who have leaned further into analog tools as their digital competitors spew vast quantities of inferior product into their markets. Individual educators (and even some institutions) who have seen the crappy writing on the wall and tried to reverse course before it’s too late.
There are many (but nearly enough) folks who have seen the flaws in the good intentions behind efforts to close the digital divide, and have consciously tried to open (or preserve??) a new digital divide, for their own benefit, and the benefit of those who choose to join them.
The new digital divide isn't about who has access to technology and the internet. The new digital divide is about those who make the choice to spend time offline, building real connections, developing authentic skills, and spending time thinking for themselves.
The new blue-tooth fishing rods haven't caught on at MTC, so we're kicking it old school still.
We all have autonomy. Disconnecting is an option. But it’s become the hard thing to do. Most things worth doing are. P.S. Send your kid to summer camp. It is literally the best thing you can do for them in 2025.
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