An Essential Metaphor of Culture as a Tree for Teenagers to Understand

An Essential Metaphor of Culture as a Tree for Teenagers to Understand

There is little doubt that the digital technology and social media has already a significant impact on culture. Towards the end of the 19th century artists sough to capture their subjects through portraits of individuals who were absorbed in the act of reading a book. Today, it is the pictures of people standing in the middle of a crowd, captivated by what they are reading on their smartphone that best symbolizes the 21st century subject.        Professor Frank Furedi

Culture is everywhere, that is the first fact. Human beings are bound by culture which can be described as the ordinary processes by which a given society observes, trains, tests and finds meanings to its true purposes. Every culture is in active development through contact, experience, education, discovery and active debate or communication.  

Culture can also be segmented for closer interpretation. It creates SOCIAL MORES which are the codes of behavior that are important because they establish manners, customs and habits and add moral significance. SOCIAL NORMS or conventions are created by like-minded people.

Culture can create MEMES which are ideas, symbols, behaviors, styles or even phenomena that can spread from person to person becoming self-redirecting and even mutating through selective pressures.

Who would disagree that our modern-day technology has drastically changed our culture in its directions, observations and meanings?  Every adult, teenager and child are facing changes. Old rules for many are deleted; new rules by a few are imposed and spread like a virus.

My greatest concern is how the obvious pressures of social media disproportionately affect teenagers especially girls. Where did this subculture come from to be perfect with a perfect body, to act perfectly to have the perfect group of friends. If you miss the perfection standard, then you face depression, self-loathing and bullying.

So, let’s imagine in a creative sense, that our culture can be symbolized by a magnificent tree deeply rooted with a sturdy trunk of common values and a crown displaying branches of society’s rules. Our ideas, words and images shine and shimmer as silvery leaves as we experience changes through the seasons.  How horrible it would be if the beautiful sentient leaves of a vital tree can now be displaced by the grinning blank Selfie screens.    

First, look at the deep roots of traditional culture…the tap root is your parents; the lateral roots are your siblings. They encompass our youthful rituals we hold dear; family, community, religion, education, celebration of holidays, birthdays, honoring weddings and funerals and all the other social rites of passage.

Second, let’s say the trunk embodies the traditional values such as honesty, responsibility, discipline, equality, gratitude, respect and the Golden Rule. The thick bark protects the historical significance of a civilized society.

Third, the branches diverge into a cumulative crown  showing the parameters of a well-functioning society including an economy, legalities and politics;  science and knowledge; education, technology and progress; environment and co-existence; arts, literature and music; as well as personal  relevance and wisdom with fairness and ethics…all noble institutions.

But look, there is a different device standing by today’s tree.  Plugged into the trunk is a large cellphone with visible scarring weaving its texture from the trunk up into the branches. 

 A smiling selfie with spaghetti straps is busy texting some kind of momentary impulse.  This insta-image tries to reinforce itself, reflecting  various pouts, poses, postures and outfits using filters to fit in. It wants a heady transpiration of likes, follows and re-posts from random other impulses and selfies.

Looking up at the crown, the glow of the internet permeates the atmosphere like a strip joint. Various social media branches, some huge, some just new twigs show their interfaces. Here and there are seen an assortment of pop stars, reality TV stars and more professional narcissists with webs of  influence capturing these aspiring selfies to be juvenile narcissists, too. Tweets fill the air; hashtags hang like a cloud of spiders on their spinnerets. Novelties inspire excitement.

A kind of cultural appropriation is taking place where the poor and underprivileged are made to feel attuned to the rich and famous by buying into their lifestyles which are not their own, fading away with feelings of inequality, oppression and depression.

We are committing to our cultural paradigm even as we look around. But what exactly are we creating? These new prevailing winds circulate around social media interaction which can incite so much addiction and manipulative behavior based on false cultural values.

Happiness is based on status symbols minus the price tag. Instant gratification, even in filtered states, dominates the sheer ego without effort.  Literacy is not reading and writing but viral images and confetti thoughts abound, many without civility. Attention span and engagement are trivial; there is no reflection or deliberation. Thinking is about comparing each other, skimming and scanning instant platitudes looking for mob crowd applause, the more offensive, the more shareable. It’s possible that parental competition helps to promotes prices and trends for their stylish teens.

Think about this Selfie tool, not with the force of an ax, but with the endless intonation to engage or disengage with a new reality that advertises, full of seductive resources with glitters and sweet appetites. Innocent young brains like attention but have no life experiences to predict adult dilemmas.

Try and smell the air. Can you sense a worthwhile contribution to store as human knowledge or anything philosophical? Or is there a feeling of wasted potential and opportunities mitigated by overt public interests in private data collection of details? Are we pawns helplessly creating new social norms?  Is traditional culture dying a slow death eroded by one painful tweet by one painful tweet?

My concern again focuses on how we protect our young people from  radical memes and habits when they do not even know a world where social media doesn’t exist. How do you manage your ideas or opinions where character is dictated by false role models? Who will pass the torch to the adolescent so that their character doesn't become a causality? Who will help them to stay strong and smart in managing this vast subject matter of viral social reality?  

There is no doubt that this digital world has fundamentally changed the way we work, play, interact and even educate. The bottom line is that social media will continue to change our society in permanent ways both with its advantages and disadvantages. 
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What about you? How has social media changed your life for the better? Did I miss any huge negatives that you see? Do you think the world can improve their social networks, for  better or worse? Everybody has an opinion or conviction. The secret, though? Never let your character become a casualty of that reality. It counts for everything.

Sincerely,

Annemarie Berukoff

amarie10@gmail.com

833 471 4661

Excerpt:  Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand

Today the real tragedy with young people is how to overcome the huge problems created by a Giant Media Monster; like a Medusa manipulator using her vast army of words and images to twist, to seduce and undermine the ability of people to think critically and freely. It's like a vast army of fake selfies attacking what's good and normal.

The great personal tragedy is made worse because most young people do not use their real characters to take offensive action but rather create their own fake Selfies to closely reflect what the Media Monster promotes. These are soldiers on the same side with the same goals which means the Monster wins every time. Like I said before, the Monster has no regret for what it is doing; it will never apologize if you keep liking her artificial ugliness again and again.

She takes a deep breath, "In fact, I believe it behooves society to take another look at what is happening and stop this unnatural domination." Her voice is raised louder than I have ever heard. I know she is angry now, a strange feeling for her.