On Youtube, hundreds of videos decry people’s ignorance. Reporters stand in busy streets with microphones, asking dozens of pedestrians common-knowledge questions. Who was the first president of the United States? Where is North Korea on this map? Who is our vice president right now? The interviewees stumble over their words. “Abraham Lincoln,” they say. They point to Canada. They cannot even provide an answer to the last question. And, watching these people on our screens, we laugh, unaware of the fact we ourselves are also worryingly ignorant of many aspects of the world around us.
Every generation is born into a world that is different and more advanced than those in the past. I am a member of Generation Z, a group typically comprised of those who were born between 1995 and 2010. In my world, nearly every screen can be operated by swipes and taps of fingertips. In my world, free wifi is the most effective advertising weapon of restaurants. In my world, adopting the language of social media is as automatic as speaking English.
I have vague memories of playing tetris on my parents’ flip phones, of living in a world without laptops, of cheering when teachers rolled a big, black, bulky television into the classroom and turned on Bill Nye the Science Guy. But for all of my recent life, during the years that I remember best, at least one technological device has been within my reach at any given moment. My teachers expect every student to bring a personal laptop to school every day, and I rarely leave home without my cell phone. Almost all communication is online. Even at school, when I am with my friends physically, we are texting each other constantly and sharing pictures via social media.
And it is not just communication between friends that is transported online. It is through technology that memes go viral and talented nobodies become famous. It is through technology that terrorist attacks reach our ears. It is through technology that new movements gather followers and spread across the nation. It is through technology that we are able to access news pouring from hundreds of sources 24 hours a day. We should be the most informed, the most educated, the most motivated generation, simply because every area of knowledge is so accessible to us. We should be the generation with the most tolerance to other viewpoints, with the most potential to create a less polarized world. But many of us are not, and we are not for all the same reasons that we should be.
When it is easier to be informed, it is simultaneously easier to be ignorant. Members of Generation Z, who have their phones on hand at any moment, can very quickly access articles from the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal, or the Huffington Post. At the same time, such availability allows them to choose instead to receive all of their information from only one source, or even not to receive it at all. With the advancement of technology, news is reported at such a fast pace that different sources simply offer differing perspectives on mostly the same events. A more right-leaning teenager can very easily rely only on Fox News for information about the world, while one on the left can solely watch MSNBC. And why, given this fact, would we ever willingly choose to expose ourselves to views with which we disagree? It is not easy, it is not fun, and most of us do not have the motivation to try.
We our wasting our privileges. We were born with technology and raised to know how to use it better than our parents and grandparents. We know what a meme is. We know every text abbreviation there is. We can type just as fast on our phones as we can on our computers. And yes, most of us know that George Washington was the first president of the United States. But while those in the past simply may not have had access to every perspective in the world, we are voluntarily choosing to embrace only a portion of information to which technology has given us access. For all people, ignorance is bliss, and for Generation Z, it is easier to attain than ever.