In Medias Res 20URL
11(20)#2 2022 |
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DOI 10.46640/imr.11.20.2 |
Branimir Felger
Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Philosophy
Zagreb, Croatia
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Generation Y – Between Challenges of the Knowledge Society and
Demands of a Prosperous Market
Puni tekst: pdf (338 KB), English, Str. 3269 - 3284
Abstract
This paper deals with elements from which modern society has created a particular gap into which it has pushed young generations, named by scientists, the media and the public, Generation Y. This gap appears between the society of knowledge, in all its conceptual poverty and absurdity on the one hand, and demands of prosperous markets, on the other. The first part of this paper will present the definition and main characteristics of millennials, as well as the socio-historical context of their development. This is followed by an analysis of the media that reproduce and, to a large extent, determine the conditions and environment in which these generations exist. They are subject to technological socialization, which means they do not come into contact with each other but with machines. In this way they achieve only contact, instead of actual human relationships as experienced by previous generations. This paper also deals with technologies commonly known as “new”, although, as we write these lines, some of them have probably already become outdated and are being replaced by newer ones. This is how fast the world changes.
Key words: generation Y, society of knowledge, consumerism, media.
1. INTRODUCTION
Recently a friend of mine, who works as an IT teacher, explained her teaching process and how she usually tests her pupils’ knowledge. They belong to the generation born in 2005. There is no place for traditional exams, papers and grades in her professional or personal curriculum. She uses Kahoot to test their knowledge. For me the concept of Kahoot was completely unknown as I belong to the generation that encountered computers and the beginnings of internet only after finishing higher level education. Not to mention apps, those products of a modern fast-growing technology I came into contact with only after spending some time on the job market.
Kahoot is an application for testing knowledge. It is a game in which the teacher constructs questions based on the school curriculum (which is certainly out of date), in a “modern” way, adapted to children, she explains, with a list of possible answers and a time limit for choosing one answer. It is actually an app created for leisure and aimed at the masses, the users of new technologies, primarily those from the younger generation, but its creator probably couldn’t imagine it would be used in the so-called ‘flipped classroom’, to use Liessmann’s term.
The Kahoot game made me think of Liessmann’s “Theory of Miseducation” because in it he exposes the idea of a society of knowledge in the postmodern era in all its existing and non-existent fragments by using the example of the television show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”. For the 2005 generation this show already belongs to an antiquated style. Kahoot is in. Although, by the time this paper is finished, maybe even Kahoot won’t be that interesting. Science, knowledge, education and the society of knowledge also feature in this paper. Knowledge in the sense of the modern “manufacture” of educated people for the purposes of the job market. This might be called commercial knowledge, which correlates to information knowledge i.e., the practice of so-called consumerist education.
2. BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF GENERATION Y
Millennials, or members of the so-called Generation Y, were born in a technological world in which almost everything has been digitised (Car, 2010). Born between 1980 and 2000 (Meier and Crocker, 2010), they’ve been called millennials and echo boomers owing to similarities with baby boomers (Kapoor and Solomon, 2011). For them a world without hundreds of television programs is unimaginable, the internet is their main source of information and fun, and they would be completely lost without a cell phone (Car, 2010).
This generation, just as any other preceding it, grew up influenced by particular political, economic, cultural and historical events (Guillot-Soulez and Soulez, 2014).
Those among them who are older, grew up in an environment of economic prosperity and peace, but only in some parts of the world. War in the Middle East and terrorist attacks have increasingly signalled them to be cautious. The economic crisis reached them at the moment when they were supposed to enter the job market, and recession faced them with the risk of unemployment and poverty. Since their earliest age, members of Generation Y have owned a computer and had internet access (Guillot-Soulez and Soulez, 2014). Their most commonly used social networks are Facebook and Twitter, while for job searches they also use LinkedIn (Anantatmula and Shrivastav, 2012).
Before 2014, 29% of millennials were on the job market, and it is assumed that by 2020 this percentage will reach 50% in the total working force (Krasulja et.al., 2015). They use internet as a social and psychological platform for self-actualization, assertion and finding their own identity. This generation uses the internet to socialize, compete for social status and take risks in order to test the limits of the social world (Peck, 2008), or to experiment with identities in search of acceptance. It is characterized by a high level of self-esteem and confidence, as well as adaptability, openness and tolerance (Anantatmula and Shrivastav, 2012).
They enter the job market with skills in which they are superior to their antecedents, owing to their knowledge of technology and the way they use it, which includes the skill of doing several tasks at the same time. They can simultaneously exchange messages with friends, listen to music and do some writing on the side (Paine Schofield and Honore, 2009).
This generation wants everything right here, right now (Bolton et al., 2013). And since they enter into interpersonal relationships through social networks, we can wonder to what extent these serve as platforms for prosocial activities, and how much they actually isolate them from the outer world and impact the deficit of altruism, confidence and social competences.
Almost 78% of adolescents believe they can be more honest online than they are in personal interaction (Lenhart et. al., 2007). If they use the computer as a tool for fun and superficial information, when and how do they use it for educational, cultural and generally social approaches to education goals? Or, as Habermas puts it, does the quantitative increase of information translate into qualitative changes in the social system? Information overload can negatively impact the development of the public sphere because “more” does not necessarily mean “better” (Habermas, 1989). This will be further discussed later in this paper.
3. THE MEDIA SOCIETY – A VICTORY OF THE BANAL AND THE TRIVIAL
Bognar notes that we live in line with the philosophy of “constant growth” which has introduced new challenges for the western civilization. He sees the postmodern period as a period of crises and changes, an unstable era of uncertainty viewed by many people as a life without defined truths, standards or ideals, and of increasing religious fundamentalism which attracts supporters because people fear the meaningless world. In such circumstances we can no longer find solutions in the old ways of thinking (Bognar, 2007). Media content is increasingly a product of such pressures.
The fact that at the beginning of the 20th century it took several months for news to reach distant parts of the world, while today an event can be followed directly on the screen of a television, cell phone or computer, illustrates the availability, speed and interactivity resulting from the increased speed of communication. The effect of television, as the most powerful and spectacular electronic extension of human senses, is based on the direct reporting of events. The so-called television spectacle transmits events as they happen in real time to millions of viewers (Radojković, Đorđević, 2001).
At the turn of the 21st century, communication technology kept expanding, progressing faster than politics had time to respond to terrorist attacks. The media follows events through satellites on TV and social networks, so it is not geographically or temporally limited. The events are reported live, here and now, while audiences can sit at home and follow terrorist attacks, police actions, searches and arrests of perpetrators. Media reports therefore can influence the policies and decisions of governments. (Felger, Lesinger, 2017).
Semati calls this phenomenon “the CNN effect” which personalizes international relations through “pure televisualization” (Semati, 2002: 214). The effect of reporting events live is that it speeds up decisions by putting pressure on diplomatic representatives and politicians (Lorimer, 1998: 293). It also influences decisions of the general public that consumes the content and finds in it a confirmation of its equally stressful, cacophonic, consumerist, hectic lifestyle.
Livingston identifies three different aspects of this genre as an American phenomenon, in the sense that the media function simultaneously or alternately as agents of setting an agenda, obstacles to achieving goals, but can also influence faster decision-making (Livingston, 1997: 2). Imperatives of American society for example are analysed in Grupp’s theory of “destroyed humans”.
He explains how Americans are under the illusion they have the freedom to make their own choices owing to critical thinking and control over their lives, but this freedom is actually a product of consuming television and social media content which indirectly influences their decisions and actions (Grupp, 2011: 156).
This can be confirmed by the primary “myth of happiness” which Gilbert explains by the fact that experiencing means to participate in an event, while awareness means observation from the outside. When we identify ourselves with awareness, we describe it as our own experienced events (Gilbert, 2009: 81) with a low or non-existent level of criticism or evaluation of the content we consume. Evaluation of media messages should be an essential skill in terms of critical thinking and verification of media content (Silverblatt et al., 2014: 507).
In the context of challenges of the postmodern era and consequences created by the mass media society i.e., created by mass media in the society, the individual has become a commodity. Media consumers are pandered to in line with market orientation, tabloidization, superficiality of content and often the sharing of unverified information due to ignorance, haste or even intentionally (Philips, 2013: 222-270).
Kapuscinski notes that ever since its transformation into a commodity, information is no longer submitted to traditional criteria of authenticity control. It is instead governed by laws of the market (Kapuscinski, 2012). And the market in the 21st century is getting bigger, owing to multiplication of the media. Kapuscinski writes that modern technologies have encouraged the multiplication of the media, and wonders about the possible consequences. The most important consequence is the revelation that information is a commodity whose sale and sharing can bring significant profit. The price of information depends on the demand i.e., the interest it evokes. Sale comes first. Information will be considered worthless if it cannot stir interest in the wider public (Kapuscinski, 2012). We live in a world of not only infotainment (combining information and entertainment), but also of the infomercial, which brings the commercial aspect to information.
The media today create and share information in accordance with commercial interest. Street also comments that the media sells products and services. Newspapers and TV shows are commercially manufactured goods, while the news item itself is a product on the market with its particular market value. For a commercial organization manufacturing news, the key measure of success is profit, just like it is for manufacturers of diapers or cars (Street, 2003: 107).
There are strong symbolic ties between the symptoms of increasing commercialization in media content and in the modalities of their production and presentation. Another aspect of this is the phenomenon called by Van Zoonen Ken and Barbie journalism.
This relates to female and male presenters whose physical attractiveness and beauty are more important than their professional qualities as journalists (Van Zoonen, 1998). Hromadžić notes they only provide a loose framework for the hidden purpose of marketing.
This comes as a result of dominant attempts in the media and media policies to make content less important than form, while form itself is subject to advertising models and policies of the market (Hromadžić, 2010). This changes the relationship between the media (television in particular) and the messages shared. Baudrillard notes that the television “message” does not consist of the images it shows, but relates to new forms of relationships and perception it imposes, as well as changes in the traditional structures of families and groups (Baudrillard, 2012).
In explaining her theory of the “spiral of silence”, Noelle-Neumann insists that humanity cannot progress if it does not adopt a completely different definition of public opinion (Noelle-Neumann, 1991: 257). This is also in line with the idea on the meaningless identification of public opinion as a personal, shared or global phenomenon, because, as Key explains, there is no point in public opinion if everyone is under control (Key, 1967: 543).
Debord also recognizes the creation of commodities in such a spectacularization of mass media and its products and narratives. He calls this process the “old enemy” (Debord, 1999: 35). Trivial sensationalism, banalization of content and advertising engineering emphasizes profit at all costs, negates the culture of dialogue and the educational-democratic role of media. It is not necessary for all TV programmes to be intellectual, enriching or educational, nor was this ever the case, but the biggest problem is that the media are financially dependent on advertising agencies which to some extent control their fate. (Radojković, Đorđević, 2001).
Through this dependence and their agenda and selection of information, the media establish rules of public and political communication, impacting the formation or change in public attitudes. Generation Y grew up and entered the job market in such a world. And when people lose the ability to interpret something for themselves, they rely on experts to teach them what they should see (Delić, 2009: 34). In the society of the spectacle, “everyone is completely at the mercy of experts, their calculations and their assessments, which always depend on these calculations” (Debord, 1999: 183).
According to Livazović (2009), the media are an important agent of socialization. Despite being transient and difficult to describe, through long-term exposure their influence may result in the accumulation of new ideas, beliefs and attitudes which have the power to modify individual behaviour, depending on, primarily, the family environment (Livazović, 2009).
Livazović (2009: 108-115) differentiates between long-term and short-term impacts of media on the behaviour of children and young people, and adds that short-term impacts appear shortly after exposure to media and may last up to several weeks. Long-term effects are cumulative and therefore more dangerous, although they are actually a direct consequence of short-term impacts.
However, they threaten to create a permanent system of beliefs, attitudes and habits active in the everyday pattern of life and behaviours in social interactions. The modern media and information society develops new levels of reality and opens up new approaches. Human agency in perception and consumption of media in the qualitative and quantitative sense is extremely important. The media are part of everyday life, throughout our lives, and some authors note the important role the media have in the formation of character from an early age.
It is therefore extremely important to act proactively. But is it too late? Especially if we take into account the intention of the 21st century to commercialize all tangible and non-tangible forms of human activity. Through this we have already destroyed the time for thinking and analysing essential values. Instead of the authority of knowledge, we passively let our individual intellectual autonomy be taken over by a media shaped reality.
4. THE PARENTAL ROLE IN OVERCOMING THE DEGRADATION OF VALUES
We have removed young people from the immediate world and equipped them with new forms of interaction, thus also pushing them into a gap between the virtual world and the real social world. Through this we have (almost) irreparably destroyed the significance of parenting in the sense of preparing young people for the outside world. The information society, the society of knowledge, as well as the mass media society, allow young people to choose their own social preferences. It is therefore no wonder that the level of their awareness is based on strict limitations within narrow walls of the supposedly wide and endless possibilities of the modern digital world. They have everything, and they have nothing.
Livazović (2009) for example notes that the functional educational aspect which is most present precisely in leisure activities, reveals to parents and educators the necessity of dealing professionally with the problem of media content to which young people are exposed. Mass consumption today is done individually, that is, every consumer is an unpaid worker who alone produces a mass man (Anders, 1996: 21).
The degraded quality of interactions within the family and generally decreasing values of traditional upbringing as a consequence of intense social change, point to the need to follow and scientifically determine the quality of time spent using media, since, by definition, every human activity entails social control (Berger and Luckmann, 1969: 59).
The focused prevention of externally caused behavioural disorders would strengthen primary educational factors (school and family), which need to justify and renew the lost trust of society in the power of educational efforts (Livazović, 2009).
I would agree on this point and add that modern times, in which television, and radio especially, have become dying forms of public consumerism, losing in the marketing competition when compared to platforms such as the internet in general and social networks and video channels in particular, also require an adequate and immediate response by the society, ranging from lawmakers to the education system and parental participation. Society has yet to address the full extent of changes introduced by radio and television, while new forms of an increasingly aggressive technology are coming at their heels.
Burić notes that the media can influence child and youth development. Information needs to have socially constructed meaning. Like gene technology, new media has the power to change the social world. The discussion on media and ethics today relates less to media culture of humanity and more to dealing with modern media. The relevance of this question is undeniable (Burić, 2010). Enabling young people to develop social relationships today presents a greater challenge for parents and schools than ever before, if we want to teach them adequate social skills and family values (Car, 2010).
In giving them digital development, we also exposed them to some risks. We have also dramatically reduced the amount of time we devote to children and young people, in families, schools, and institutions of higher education. It is therefore no wonder that hierarchy and relationship to authorities is in a dramatic state of collapse. The key values of today, such as, superficial education, combined with the great expansion and hyperproduction of information, interspersed with consumerism, are aggressively interwoven in the social development style of the young generations today. By dumbing down ourselves, we dumb them down as well, which has inconceivable consequences we justify by the freedom of choice in a competitive environment.
5. CONSUMERISM – PSEUDO-NEEDS AND THE FUTILE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS
As we bear witness to the unstable political context, nepotism and corruption, the collateral victim is human freedom, as free thinking and choice are disappearing. At the same time, this is reflected in the failed attempt to achieve happiness through material possession. De Botton notes that today people consider themselves happy only if they have the same amount or possibly a bit more than those in their reference group, people with whom they grow, socialize and identify with in the public sphere (De Botton, 2005).
Consumption has become the main focus of social life (Čolić, 2008). To own the tangible and lack the spiritual, appears to be the pattern for achieving happiness. There is no deeper analysis of ways to realize human needs and interests. Čolić exposes the motives for accumulating goods from a psychological perspective when he says these are not needs but wishes, which in their essence are limitless and insatiable (Čolić, 2008).
Hromadžić sees a parallel between processes of socially constructed pseudo-needs and Debord’s concept of the society of spectacle. The construction of pseudo-needs is managed by mass media and advertising agencies which produce endless series of seductive advertising images for mass consumption (Hromadžić, 2012). We thus subject future generations and are ourselves subjected to, the intolerant microcosm of our own ambitions which are based on evaluating success from a purely economic point of view. At the same time, we fail to understand the paradox we have found ourselves in.
Anders imaginatively explains this by describing the concept of a homeworker. While the traditional homeworker manufactured products in order to gain a minimum of consumer goods and leisure, the modern homeworker consumes a maximum of leisure products in order to help produce the mass man. Anders further explains how this process becomes paradoxical, as the worker, instead of being paid for his cooperation, needs to pay for it himself i.e., buy the means of production by the use of which he has agreed to be transformed into mass man. He therefore pays for selling himself, even his lack of freedom. He has to purchase the very unfreedom he himself helped produce, as it has also become a commodity (Anders, 1996: 21).
A critical discussion might be launched into these exchanges of one type of values for another, but the roots and sources of changes in the human mind when choosing one’s own needs, are to be found in man. Man created the civilization foundations for this new way of expressing and understanding value. Man gave precedence to the wish to “have” instead of “to be”, failing to understand the pressure of the inescapable illusion he produced. The shopping centre has become the centre of his self-realization. Bruckner calls it a “cathedral of superfluity”.
In these cathedrals of superfluity, our guilt is not in the fact we want too much, but that we want too little. Our only pleasure is in wanting what we do not need. (Bruckner, 1997).
Chomsky also believes that the starting point of such a reality is in propaganda, when he says that a society does not perceive propaganda as the dimension of media which has the greatest influence on that society (Chomsky, 2002). However, modern hyper-productivity compels Anders’s homeworker to consume. Bruckner notes that in response, the goods need to be transitory, their decomposing planned, their obsoleteness programmed (we probably all had our washing machine stop working precisely a day after its warranty expired). While possession represents permanence, our objects are seductive only as part of a short-term, limited series (e.g., a uniquely packaged perfume on special offer only for one month). They quickly fall out of fashion, momentarily replaced by new ones which shine for a little while before being replaced themselves (Bruckner, 1997).
The author sees consumption as a vicious religion, because we believe in the endless resurrection of things, with the supermarket acting as church, and advertising its gospel. He notes that the ability of things to last would actually make us miserable, rob us of a foolish pleasure and of a world which keeps changing so that we ourselves wouldn’t have to. (Bruckner, 1997).
Alić calls this kind of “evangelical” advertising, “the final totalitarian ideology” (Alić, 2009: 117). Such advertising does not only include the traditional persuasion to consume particular products, it also means total manipulation through the overall manner and attitude towards social structures, resulting finally in the transformation of reality into a total lie.
It is clear that in their “escape from freedom”, manipulated individuals also feel a certain pleasure when they are “managed from the outside”. This means not taking responsibility, existing inside the safe space of the group, enjoying the illusion of freedom. (Breton, 2000: 141). These are the circumstances in which Generation Y develops, in giving up the freedom of choice to simplified preferences of individual limitations. Education plays a part in this process as well.
6. EDUCATION AS A PROSPEROUS MARKET
The role of “adults” is therefore extremely important, in the educational, advisory and legal sense. Kink notes that media images often feature young users of new technologies as some digital technology-dependant natives who are endlessly agile in using a multitude of information sources thus gaining a natural capacity for survival. As they were born in the era of new technologies, the students have in many ways surpassed their teachers. This however does not mean that we do not need adults in the role of educators and teachers (Kink, 2009).
Ilišin (2003) notes that, even though teachers and schools are often named as the supposed main moderators for media capabilities of children, parents are still the main media socializers. Research points to a significant problem, as only 10% to 15% of children talk with their parents about what they have seen, heard or read, which is less than they share with their peers (Ilišin, 2003, in: Košir et al., 1999).
Habermas notes that in the reconstructed modern system of information and communications, young generations are overloaded with information, and information overload can negatively impact the development of the “public sphere” and democracy itself since inadequate information prevents citizens to participate, instead encouraging them to be passive (Habermas, 1989).
Does greater exposure to information make people more informed? Only in a superficial sense. I wonder however about the power of concentration in these times of mass production and consumption of too much information. I believe it eludes us. There is no interest for something that needs to be analysed for a longer period of time, because there is no time or will. This is the characteristic of millennials that I already mentioned: to consume something right here, right now, at the superficial level of perception, and then erase it from memory instantaneously to make room for new information.
An artificial impression is induced in people that they are led by their own feelings and instincts. They supress awareness of something they would otherwise be aware of because they are afraid, their main emotion is fear (Fromm, 1980: 110). In this case they fear rejection and failure which would lead to isolation from a society in which only universal patterns of behaviour are accepted, never individual ones.
Bognar for example demands deep changes in the education system, particularly at the didactic level. He believes we should teach new generations about the efforts made by previous generations in overcoming their own misconceptions (Bognar, 2007). Today, school has become a pastime, a superficial presentation of information. Bauman (1988) agrees that the market has transformed the consumption of information into a pleasurable amusement, and education has become just one of the many ways to have fun. This is evidenced by the way in which generations of today “learn”. They learn things online, from their “invisible” friends and not from teachers, they use only content that brings them pleasure or that helps them make their own conclusions on the necessity to consume. They are not interested in sources, only form, without content. For Generation Y there is a difference between knowledge and information.
They are known as the most educated generation, although in fact they merely own information. This knowledge then does not exist for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of being used for profit and to satisfy the needs of the prosperous market, as Liessmann calls it.
They have a whole range of tools at their disposal, which previous generations could not even imagine. There are online search providers such as Google, discussion platforms in the form of blogs and forums, new distribution channels like Wikipedia. They use all of these merely as consumers of an instant supply and demand, not in order to think about the world around them, let alone for a deeper understanding of social processes.
What are the benefits of this type of consumption? It produces reduced understanding of the world with the purpose of greater consumption. This includes goods of all kinds, aspiration to materialism, quick earnings, instant pleasure, a consumerist lifestyle in general. And despite the great availability of information, friends and acquaintances on social networks, research shows that social engagement, interest for the social-political arena as well as culture and history, remain total mysteries for young generations.
Market fundamentalism and the society of knowledge, aided by an institutionalized marketing philosophy, together work on building the dubious structure of the global society of knowledge (Delić, 2009: 32). In the name of educating the global society of knowledge, only one dimension of globalization, the economic one, comes to the fore as universal, lifesaving, good-intentioned, self-evident, coherent, unproblematic, scientifically legitimate and justified (Delić, 2009: 32).
There is no room for thinking in modern schools, Liessmann (2008) explains, taking Nietzsche’s ideas as his starting point. Education is dominated by projects and practice, experiences and networking, excursions and short trips. The secret programme of modern education appears to be the insistence on not thinking for oneself, of ensuring that the community establishes modalities of production for individuals capable of understanding, linking and maximally adjusting their functioning within the current postmodern narrative.
For Liessmann the society of knowledge has no connection to what has been the European tradition since ancient times, in the sense of virtues, discernment, practical knowledge, and finally wisdom. In this society nobody learns something for the sake of knowledge but for the sake of learning. In political discourse, the society of knowledge is supposed to be the same as information society. In dominant discourses on globalisation, information society is relatively carelessly and hastily equated with the society of knowledge (Delić, 2009: 35).
The popular idea that we live in an information society and therefore a society of knowledge, can justly be contrasted with the idea that we live in a “misinformation society” (Liessmann, 2008: 24-27). Knowledge is more than just information. Knowledge is a way of perceiving the world: realizing, understanding, conceiving. Knowledge is not unambiguously focused on achieving a purpose. Information is interpretation of data, while knowledge may be described as interpretation of data in regards to their causal correlation and inner consistency (Liessmann, 2008: 24).
This is rarely the case today. Modern generations have the possibility to simply shut down communication and ignore information if they consider it a burden or a negative topic. The orientation of the modern distribution of knowledge exclusively on new technologies, has actually limited it with its multimediality. Liessmann (2008) states that historical data which are not linked according to the logic of historical sciences and their context but are grouped in accordance with political and emotional circumstances, do not result in knowledge but in ideology. This answers the ubiquitous research today on the growing introversion and decreased social sensitivity of new generations.
Bognar (2007) calls for a modern recognition of Pestalozzi’s triad of head, heart and hands, as well as a critical analysis of the future problems and challenges faced by “wise young heads”. How will that be possible if we ourselves imposed on them the communicative maxim that information is enough?
Adding to this superficial modern interpretation of the society of knowledge I must go back to the beginning of this paper and the Kahoot app as a mirror to current goals of learning. We ourselves have failed in the face of demands by new generations, as we have enabled them to be free from the pressures of a traditional type of education. Is Kahoot enough? Liessmann makes the parallel with “Who wants to be a Millionaire”.
Ever since this show gained recognition, modern teachers no longer relied on boring exams to find out whether their students really understood the lesson, but rather on guessing games modelled after this quiz, Liessmann reported more than ten years ago. Kahoot is the modern version of the “Millionaire” game. These formats indicate that modern education is at the level of mass media entertainment, which Liessmann sees as a distinct form of ignorance, while the knowledge shown, contrary to its intentions, remains non-binding and unrelated, as it has become completely external (Liessmann, 2008: 12).
Knowledge and education are no longer the goal, however strange this might sound. Rather, they have become a means which does not require any further analysis as long as it can be justified as a means for prosperous markets, qualification for a job position, mobility of services, economic growth.
In the society of knowledge, educated people can never be seen as the final goals of the required permanent process of gaining knowledge. These ideals are of course neither wise men nor traditional scientists, instead there is only the brain which recognizes industrial possibilities of implementing complex research quicker than its competing equivalent in Shanghai (Liessmann, 2008: 70).
7. IN CONCLUSION
Is Kahoot really enough? Modern science has not managed to achieve a minimum of consensus on the definition of the postmodern, let alone find a solution for its essential products. We are however witnessing a new mental order of a primarily capitalist character. While many authors analyse this particular phenomenon of postmodern society and examine its causes, the consequences and solutions of constructing a virtual world entangled in interests of neoliberal capitalism, are only touched upon. There are no solutions. If Kahoot or “Millionaire” are considered solutions, so be it. But this might mean we are creating isolated individuals unprepared for a deeper examination of society and social processes. Are we not thus creating digital addicts, unaware of manipulations of the media-marketing concept of the modern world? It is also absurd and ironic that civilization has let the products of its hard-won and permanent progress to a dissolution of the essence. Dissolution of the essence for the benefit of consumer nonsense, based on a deficient education system – this is the world we leave to future generations, with the assumption they have gained a great starting point for making the future world regress even further as they strive for prosperity. Kahoot unfortunately, is quite enough for a world like that.
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Generacija Y u rascjepu između izazova društva znanja i zahtjeva prosperitetnog tržišta
Sažetak
Rad se bavi česticama od kojih je današnje društvo satkalo rascjep u koji je dovelo mlade generacije, a znanstvenici, mediji i javnost nazivaju ih genaracijom Y, rascjep između društva znanja, u svoj svojoj pojmovnoj siromašnosti i apsurdnosti te društva medija s jedne strane i zahtjeva prosperitetnog tržišta, s druge strane. U prvom dijelu rada bit će predstavljeni pojmovi i glavne markacije generacije Y, društveno-povijesni kontekst njihova odrastanja. Potom će biti govora i o medijskom koloritu koji reproducira, ali i u velikom dijelu i fabricira uvjete i okolinu u kojoj ove generacije egzistiraju, u kojoj su podvrgnute tehnološkoj socijalizaciji, dakle, socijalizaciji ne jedni s drugima, već s tehnološkim dostignućima preko kojih međusobno ostvaruju tek kontakt, a ne ljudski odnos, kakav su poznavale ranije generacije. Nadalje, dotaknut će se i tehnologija, koje je uvriježeno zvati „novima“, iako, dok pišem ove retke, neke od njih su već zastarjele i zamijenjene novijima. Toliko brzo se svijet mijenja.
Ključne riječi: generacija Y, društvo znanja, konzumerizam, mediji.