Immediate. Spontaneous. Concurrent.
Everything in real-time. In order to understand how our kids experience the world, we need to understand this real-time reflex.
Real time in media isn’t a terribly new idea. Films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1949), 12 Angry Men (1957), and the amazing Run Lola Run (1998) follow events they occur in the same time frame as the movie. It’s a technique also seen recently in television shows like 24 and Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals. You see it in YouTube videos, video games (such as Prince of Persia, Animal Crossing, Nintendogs).
But beyond mere entertainment, real-time means we’ve become accustomed to using our media as a literal window on the world. We think nothing of news that shows us things as they are happening: wars, revolutions, natural disasters and political intrigue. We demand — and expect — access to our politicians and celebrities on a constant, regular and intimate basis. We put regular folks with conveniently placed cellphone cameras who happen to be in the right place in the right time on the same par as CNN journalists. We’ve also turned the camera back on the Internet itself, watching the conversations people are having online into news (see CBSNews’ What’s Trending)
Our kids are growing up in a world where the minutiae of the everyday is blogged and posted on Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare. They know what their friends had for breakfast, where they are at this very minute and whether they are having a fight with their boyfriend. We adults may complain and worry about how this redefines privacy and trivializes intimacy, but that’s a moot point for them. This is the new normal.
Immediacy also means they see their pictures as soon as they take them, and have them instantly uploaded on their preferred social media tool. It means they know their SAT scores and marks as quickly as possible. It means that when they gamble, they prefer quick rounds of poker or scratch lottery cards to those weekly draws. It means that shopping has become a social media experience (check out Pose, Where to Get It and VIZL).
The real-time reflex means social interaction gets pared down to its bare bones. We used to accept a phone call in place of a formal face-to-face meeting as a time saver. Then email whittled down the social niceties of a phone call or formal letter even further. But our kids don’t often waste their time on emails or phone calls – everything is reduced to the shorthand of a text message. No greetings or sign-offs. No signatures or “how are you’s?” Just “lmk” and “ttyl” and “lmao.”
This isn’t meant as a critique, but simply an observation. It helps us understand how to parent and teach our kids more effectively. We don’t always have to adapt to this real-time reflex, but it can help us understand the cadence of their daily lives. You might you get faster and more helpful messages from your teen about where they are and what they are doing if you text them instead of calling their cellphones. And you might gain some insight into their stressors and anxieties by understanding how their lives are played out in real-time on social media.
