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< | The Power of Our Teachers: Why the Classroom Is the Battleground for Fighting Totalitarianism |
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> | Generation Z |
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-- By AnaCarolinaVarela - 06 Mar 2015 |
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< | The Problem |
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> | The Profile |
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< | Privacy is very close to being a thing of the past. The right to be forgotten is no longer a viable option for most Americans. Our cell phones are being used to spy on us, the attempts made at encryption are being derailed, and young people are being conditioned to live without privacy by their parents and teachers. All of this, however, has failed to produce any action on the part of those in power, or those to whom the listeners are listening. |
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> | (I acknowledge that any generalization about a group this size is naturally going to get some people wrong. The studies cited below are intended for guidance; I allow for the possibility that plenty of Z-ers don't fall into these descriptions at all.) |
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< | Who is to blame? |
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> | Generation Z is unlike any other. One study about Z-ers says their teachers describe them as “lack[ing] situational awareness, [being] oblivious to their surroundings and unable to give directions.” Their teachers also believe that their “digital tools make students more likely to ‘write too fast and be careless.’” The study describes the general communication style of Z-ers as imprecise and open to “interpretation” |
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< | The government has few incentives to scale back this program of data collection. The companies collecting this information are motivated by the monetization of data. Individuals are also loathe to give up any of the convenience or psychological rewards that free email and social networking bring (Cory Doctorow has gone so far as to describe Facebook as a Skinner Box that conditions us to give up more information in order to experience validation). This leaves only one subset of the population that is not receiving a direct benefit from Big Data: young people. Though this generation will be the most inextricably tied to the Net and technology, it will also be in the best position to redirect the course of tech. There are a number of ways that we might try to reach them: namely, through direct campaigning, through their parents, and through their teachers. |
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> | On the other hand, Z-ers are also highly tech savvy, on average multi-tasking among 5 different screens at a time. This connection to technology has made them more “attuned to NSA surveillance issues,” per the study. But it has also created a generation of people who are extremely reliant on technology and, while sensitive to geo-location services, or Facebook’s privacy violations, likely to have a much harder time putting down the screen for any amount of time. With this dependence comes opportunity for those who would exploit/monetize private information. |
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> | The Challenge |
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< | Young people have no incentive to demand privacy |
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> | Neither the government nor the companies responsible have many incentives to scale back data collection. Individuals are also loathe to give up any of the convenience or psychological rewards that free email and social networking bring (Cory Doctorow has gone so far as to describe Facebook as a Skinner Box that conditions us to give up more information in order to experience validation). Though this generation will be the most inextricably tied to the Net and technology, it will also be in the best position to redirect the course of tech. However, as demonstrated above, there are risks if the current trajectory of technological use continues. |
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< | I think, however, that marketing campaigns would ultimately fail if aimed at kids already using social media. As Emily Nussbaum explains, "Younger people, one could point out, are the only ones for whom it seems to have sunk in that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion. Every street in New York has a surveillance camera. Each time you swipe your debit card at Duane Reade or use your MetroCard, that transaction is tracked. Your employer owns your e-mails. The NSA owns your phone calls. Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not."
It would appear that there is no longer much incentive to work toward privacy – since no one is going to respect your attempts to get it. Nussbaum points out that young people have developed a kind of survival mechanism. The constant audience has pushed them to, “adopt[] the skills that celebrities learn in order not to go crazy: enjoying the attention instead of fighting it—and doing their own publicity before somebody does it for them.” |
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> | As Emily Nussbaum points out,
Younger people, one could point out, are the only ones for whom it seems to have sunk in that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion. Every street in New York has a surveillance camera. Each time you swipe your debit card at Duane Reade or use your Metro Card, that transaction is tracked. Your employer owns your e-mails. The NSA owns your phone calls. Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. |
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< | That article seems to extoll the virtues of teens embracing their audience and publishing their stories online. The problem that article does not address, however, is what to do when the information we do not want online is suddenly up for grabs. Our precise geographic location, our private telephone conversations, our humiliations. Teens today are growing up in a world where they are taught not to expect privacy from their parents, teachers, or the government. Why should they care if they have privacy from their friends? |
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> | It would appear that there is no longer much incentive to work toward privacy – since no one is going to respect your attempts to get it. Teens today are growing up in a world where they are taught not to expect privacy from their parents, teachers, or the government, though they apparently do what they can to mitigate it. At the same time, the abovementioned changes are happening and there is little that can be done to stop it. This generation is also, however, among the most entrepreneurial; they are also very aware of the challenges this post Great Recession world presents. |
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< | Who can fix it? |
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> | The Possibilities |
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< | The pitfalls of spy-parenting |
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> | Taken all together, then, there is perhaps some opportunity to give this generation the tools to adapt to this new anatomy, instead of merely being absorbed into it. One of the most important tools, of course, is education. |
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< | Understanding this, it becomes clear that the most effective way to impress the importance of privacy upon young people is to begin by teaching them what it means to have privacy at all. Parents, however, like governments, will collect and analyze information about their wards whenever possible – and it is always in the name of security. Parents, then, must learn to fight the urge to gather intelligence on their own young people and trust them. But parents of kids already accustomed to a lack of privacy are also parents who have created those conditions. |
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> | This education must be targeted to develop certain skills. To encourage critical thinking, precise communication, and to parse the millions of bits of information they receive every day, and to do it in a space in which coercion is limited, however, seems like an almost impossible task. However, I posit that it is possible to achieve a number of these goals by creating a Debate requirement for all 13-18 year-olds. |
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< | Teachers are in the best position to help |
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> | The benefits of debate are documented. Students who debate learn to solve problems, research, and digest & synthesize new information on a greater scale. More importantly for the goals I set forth above, the edict of debaters everywhere is to question power structures. I have no cite for this last benefit, only my own experience “on the circuit” when I was in high school. The process of strategizing made us all rethink our approach to the world around us. Understanding that we didn’t have to “accept” information meant that we could resolve our own questions dynamically. |
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< | So is the answer in education? Are teachers in the best position to make young people understand the implications of a life lived on the Net? Absolutely.
First, the major problem with actually producing a secure environment is that the majority of users don’t know how to use the technology that keeps them safe. For example, in one 1999 analysis of the usability of PGP, two computer scientists concluded “PGP 5.0 is not usable enough to provide effective security for most computer users, despite its attractive graphical user interface . . . .” Twelve years later, this study was cited for the proposition that PGP remains “a hassle.” That same article concluded with the line, “[T]he glory of Google or Facebook, after all, is that anyone can use them without really knowing how they work.” |
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> | It also meant that I had to learn to communicate. It was not enough to simply take a position; I had to defend it. I had to look people in the eye, write my argument, and deliver it coherently. It was also an activity in which I could synthesize technological learning, and more traditional forms of communication and learning. For this reason, I think it may provide a solution to “exercising cultural drag” and beginning a process of rethinking the world we are creating. |
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< | The problem of usability could be solved by teaching kids how the technology they use works. Much as grammar and mathematics are central features of any curriculum, so should how technology works be a key part of what our young people learn. If they understand the power Google has, maybe they’ll be more careful in how they use its applications and, when they eventually become employees of companies like it, maybe they’ll be more responsible in how they wield that power. If people understand how computers work, then it will be that much more difficult for companies to produce computers that can “betray their owners.” Finally, if the learning is not imposed but sought out, it’ll stick.
The second issue with realizing a safer society is a lack of understanding about the legality of data collection. If young people grow up learning that the vulnerabilities created by long-term use of the FitBit and Samsung Smart TVs’ recording of the most fundamentally personal aspects of our can be detrimental – as well as prevented – they may take action. Realizing that the current state of affairs is not inevitable may change their willingness to accept the status quo, but they will also need the tools to combat it. Here, we cannot understate the importance of educating young people about their basic freedoms. Not only should they understand their basic First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights against the state, but they should also understand how past generations have lost and regained those rights. A combination of historical, legal, and technological learning is the solution to ensuring that children are prepared for a future as leaders in an increasingly interconnected, technological environment. |
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> | Finally, it also meant that I was directing the process of learning. With the guidance of my some time mentor, I learned – not just what arguments I could make – but how to learn to build them. Of course, there was probably more external “pressure” than I understood at the time, but this felt like a less coercive form of learning that I had previously experienced. This was likely one of the most important benefits: taking ownership of my education. |
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> | For all these reasons, I think that teaching young people to debate, as part of the required curriculum, will help them to create a generation equipped to handle the challenges that lie ahead. |
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I don't think that teaching people constitutional amendment concepts will be of much use until it is too late. And it's hard for children to learn about privacy because adults don't allow them any. |