Generation See Me
This article. All of it. From that opening about giving your baby the gift of being able to actually return to first moments they’ll never remember:
“First memories, forever.” That’s the promise of Babeyes, a product unveiled in January at the Consumer Electronics Show. The idea is simple: Attach the Babeyes camera to your newborn or infant, and it will gather footage of the world from a baby’s point of view.
To the fact that Generation Z is the first generation that has–in some cases–complete day-to-day documentation. While there are a handful of pictures of me from each year of childhood, my kids can reconstruct their lives via pictures on my phone, Tweets, blog posts, Facebook updates.
This generation has never not been watched. Even if their parents don’t share pictures online, they still usually take them. And if they’re not taking them, someone else is taking them. These kids are coming of age and going online themselves, broadcasting their world to their peers. And there are people out there–oftentimes strangers–watching their lives. Which is weird. But as the article states: “when considering these aspects of life, they won’t think of surveillance at all. It won’t be weird.”
Is it surveillance if you agree to it?
And is there any way to not agree to it at this point?
Does this describe every kid? No. But does it ring true, too? Um… yes:
They are saved in the cloud, perpetually viewable, the memories of memories posted to the stream long ago, unable to forget or be forgotten. They are a generation living in a paradox: The more they do and the more they come alive, the more they’re watched and the more narrowly they’ll be defined, boxed in and buried under the data they produce.
Your thoughts?
4 comments
Eh, people were afraid of photography when it first started too. And airplanes, and cars, and telephones. Technological advancement is always treated with suspicion.
I bet you don’t think much about all the surveillance that you’re undergoing, either. Every store has cameras. Churches and businesses and even your neighbor with her Ring doorbell system – it’s everywhere and we barely notice.
I am the daughter of a woman who loves photography. Every year on my birthday we would look at pictures from my first year ( at least one for nearly every day). She would tell the story of my first year. (It should be mentioned that she battled infertility for 7 years in the lates 70s and early 80s to have me!).
I love it. Love that we have these pictures . Loves that she talks through then about baby me with such love. I would love to watch the baby eyes of me!
I fear that Gen Z doesn’t understand that they’re giving away something of value, something of theirs that can be used against them. We as their parents and guardians of their privacy could not see it coming and weren’t prepared to parent around it. Plus, the tide to share all is so huge! What parent can match that wave into their child’s young adulthood if the child is not open to perceiving this wider view?
(I say that with care because I think you have children who understand this better than most, thanks to your guidance and their constitution. But I think that is fairly rare in Gen Z-ers.)