Are Black Youths At Risk With Technology?

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“The arts and technology of each era are only window dressing and do not give people life. The harm of improved technology may balance out its good.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson. Selected Essays. New York: Peoples Book Club, 1949.

“Turn the radio and TV off, think for a second/Technology is a blessing, but it’s also a weapon/” – Canibus, “One Ought Not To Think,” For Whom The Beat Tolls, 2007.

In our fast-paced, information-centered world, the need for a convenient medium through which we can better navigate the terrain of life is understandable, but, if intent on keeping our humanity in check, we must begin interrogating the dangers and hazards some of those “media” are having on our mental, social, personal, spiritual, and relational lives. The surge of technology, within the last century, has made life easier for some, but it’s also elevated the levels of confusion and misunderstanding, for others. I speak not of the older generation, which, by the way, couldn’t revel in this technology boom any more, but of the younger Black generation.

Over the last three days, a Dearborn, Michigan community has tried to cope with the horrific death of 20-year-old Asia McGowan. Ms. McGowan was a YouTube user, who uploaded personal videos to her account. According to sources, her videos, mostly comprising comic routines, had gained notoriety. Incidentally, they also attracted the attention of detractors, whom she referred to, in a recent clip (posted shortly before her death), as “haters.” Anthony Powell, 28, was also a YouTube user.. Notorious for his cantankerous rants against Black Women–whom he accused of murdering “1,500 babies a day”– and atheists, Powell was known to many as a serial internet bully, and had been protested, on line, countless times–which led to the suspension of his accounts. In his diatribes, he often expressed and explored suicidal fantasies. This background made it worse for community-members, relatives and friends to accept the news that Powell was McGowan’s killer. According to police reports, she was killed with a shotgun at Dearborn’s Henry Ford Community College.

Our younger community is suffering from a sickness–whether it knows it or not.

A couple of weeks back, multi-platinum rapper Busta Rhymes was featured in a internet clip bashing society’s over-reliance as Ralph Waldo Emerson did almost two centuries ago on technology. Rhymes recounted a startling experience, validating his worries expressively: He was lodged in separate hotel rooms with a fellow performer. Between the two rooms, next door to each other, the only demarcating force was a door which “connects” them. “So, he ain’t gotta go in the hallway,” Rhymes reinforces. To communicate with Busta Rhymes, however, the anonymous entertainer didn’t take the few steps required to make eye-contact. Instead, he text-messaged the man he shared a dividing door with. “Nobody [was] in the room with him!” Busta exclaims.

This experience, as displayed in the emotion-packed (expletive-laden) clip, left Busta Rhymes worried. As he sees it, the computer, and other related technological advancements, has made us “lazy,” and programmed us to “interact less.” He concludes that it is “dehumanizing people.” According to him, the shift from human interaction to technology-based communication hypes up the possibility of misinterpretation, in our day-to-day conversations. This effect handicaps our ability to “feel” the “real intent” of human correspondence, he stated. With a few seconds left, Busta Rhymes leaps into the kinds of homilies Emerson was famous for: “Human life and human interaction has become secondary to mankind. I don’t… respect that.”

The more Black kids see value in cyberspace media, the heavier a load our burden becomes. MySpace paved the way for the social-networking trend, and ever since its launch in 2003, critics haven’t bitten their tongue about the deleterious impact they claim it’s having on young users. From the increase in cyberspace-bullying, to the rise in internet-influenced sexual predation, to personal security concerns, MySpace critics have had a field day, registering their complaints. Another strong criticism that accompanied the MySpace boom was its alleged de-regulation of civility. Antagonists argued that the cover of a computer screen, coupled with identity-anonymity, guaranteed the regularity of verbal assaults and cyber-threats. MySpace found itself unable to deal with most of these charges, as they met legitimacy in the eyes of many parents.

In addition to dehumanizing the younger Black community, these devices are no doubt also dumbing them down. In the last three months, Twitter, a “micro-blogging service,” has body-slammed Facebook, an older audience-targeted social networking site, as the most demanded social program. Though a February 2009 report, by Compete.com, ranks Facebook first, MySpace second and Twitter third, in use, Twitter remains an indisputably attention-demanding service.

The concept of Twitter is a curious one–to say the least. Those who use it are restricted to 140 characters, in their “Tweets..” It has, in the twinkle of an eye, become the favorite service of countless celebrities, including Barack Obama (no disrespect), Diddy, Soulja Boy, 50 cent, Shaq, Kanye West, Rev Run, Russell Simmons, and Snoop Dogg. Most of these famous users have tens of thousands (some hundreds of thousands) of followers, at their disposal. With this kind of discipleship Jesus could only have dreamed of, the impossible often takes place. Example: A couple of days ago, Snoop used his Twitter account to debunk a rumor claiming his wife was dead.

This access to the immediate public is commendable–as it can be put to good use–however, the possibility of harm is not exempt, in any discourse on technology.

Most of those listed users have scores of young Black followers. Because these celebrities have followers for fans, the danger of misinformation or indoctrination should not be overlooked. Followers record, register and regurgitate their every word. With the 140 character-restriction, the rules of grammar are defied intentionally and conveniently, by most users. If their fans become so accustomed to the language of cyberspace, and the dialect of micro-blogging, the already-abysmal, young Black illiteracy rate is bound to hop into an elevator soon.

The popularity of video games, iPods, cell phones, and blackberries (portable laptops), is another wave of the technology stream that hasn’t been exactly beneficial to our community. These gadgets have become a Black child’s best friend. They play, talk, and interact with them. Video games, especially, come to represent the receptacles into which frustration and aggression is expelled, for many Black males. Why then do we complain when kids emulate, so effortlessly, the characters they spend more time with, in a day’s course, than friends, colleagues, relatives, and family members?

What these technological brands hope to sell is the illusion of luxury. They front as alleviators, but, in reality, only increase the trauma. It was never intended that computers replace human will, spirit, warmth and comfort, and all attempts to make that impossibility possible is what accounts for the kind of experience Busta Rhymes rhymed about.

Modern-age technology is also dangerous, because, for a lot of younger Blacks, it makes irrelevant the elegance of the past. In many ways, it provides cover for those who refuse to take history and tradition seriously. Internet searches have taken over the age of academic research, Wikipedia is the new papyrus scrolls, and local libraries only suffer more, as a result. All around the country, they are shutting down. Their doors are closing. They face this terrible plight not because of under-funding (though this is rampantly true, nation-wide), but, in many instances, due to the indifference of the younger generation.

Librarians are complaining that when younger students walk in, their first and only stop is the computers section. The thirst for knowledge is missing in this generation, reality escapes them (except the make-believe one they spend their time creating), and we wonder why, to paraphrase King George, our children isn’t learning..

What we do know, and are confident of, is that all hope ain’t lost–it never is. Unfortunately, we seem to be oblivious to the reality that time is running out, that if we don’t intervene timely, the worst would show up bearing gifts. We can turn this around, but it would only start with less reliance on technology, and more, as Busta prescribed, on human life and human interaction.

Tagged as: black youth, Education, Facebook, Myspace, technology, Twitter

Article by Tolu Olorunda

Tolu Olorunda is a cultural critic. He can be reached at: Tolu.Olorunda@gmail.com.

Tolu has written 16 article(s) for us.