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Article and photos provided by: Tidewater Arts Outreach
We love inter-generational workshops as with their families—they don’t talk to them,”
tools for bringing diverse groups together, Athena told me. “They just say ‘Okay, okay,
and for helping develop new appreciation, whatever’ while they’re on their phones. They
trust and respect for others. Younger genera- don’t pay attention to their family.” Like her
tions have much to learn from their elders, peers, Athena is an expert at tuning out her
but modern life offers them fewer and fewer parents so she can focus on her phone. She
opportunities to experience meaningful spent much of her summer keeping up with
interactions with elders. friends, but nearly all of it was over text or
Snapchat. “I’ve been on my phone more than
A September 2017 article by The Atlantic,
“Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” I’ve been with actual people,” she said. “My
describes some very disheartening social find- bed has, like, an imprint of my body.””
ings on how technology’s pervasiveness effects The article also describes an increase in
young people in the critical years of their depression and suicide among teens, with cell
development: phones cited as the main cause:
“One of the ironies of iGen life is that despite “The results could not be clearer: Teens who
spending far more time under the same roof as spend more time than average on screen
their parents, today’s teens can hardly be said activities are more likely to be unhappy, and
to be closer to their mothers and fathers than those who spend more time than average
their predecessors were. “I’ve seen my friends