What the World Needs Now? : Kamala Gururaja

- The Issues My Generation Will Combat Over the Next 25 Years

By Kamala Gururaja

In the last 25 years, our society has developed and progressed in innumerable ways. 25 years ago, in 1996, Fox News launched, Bill Clinton was reelected as President of the United States, Garry Kasparov played his first chess match against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, and Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorced. In 2021, we are living through the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, are in an age of disinformation and polarization, live in a society based on technology and the internet, and are facing the serious effects of climate change. Who would have imagined that the world would be like this in 1996? For me, a high schooler who was born in 2007 (the year the iPhone was invented), this is the only world that I know. While my generation did not create the challenges that this world faces, it is up to us to solve these issues.

Twenty five years ago, President Bill Clinton had an approval rating of 58%. Currently, President Joe Biden has an approval rate of 42%. In the last several years, my country and the world as a whole has become increasingly polarized. The previous US President, Donald Trump, rejected his loss in the 2020 election, provoking a violent insurrection of the United States Capitol. Our society is fractured; to solve the world’s problems, my generation needs to repair this divide and unify our society.

Today, our societies cannot function without technology and the internet. One vital form of connection for my generation is social media. Social media, like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitter, lets one see what their friends and peers are doing and connect with people online. However, constantly seeing the seemingly “perfect” lives of strangers can negatively affect one’s own self esteem and can be dangerous, especially for impressionable and insecure teenagers. Social media algorithms, which recommend posts to you based on your previous activity, exacerbate these negative effects, often leading users to view more and more extreme content. My generation needs to be protected from the harmful aspects of social media through regulation of algorithms and online platforms.

Even before the pandemic, the internet was a prominent presence in our lives, but over the past 18 months, this presence increased for many children as school took place virtually. However, many kids do not have access to the internet and functional devices. As our society continues to move online and incorporate technology into education, we need to ensure that every child has equal access to the internet and combat digital inequity. Without addressing the lack of digital resources for many children, so many children will miss out on vital opportunities and education and the socio-economic gap between those with resources and those without will increase.

My generation is equipped to solve these problems. The current state of the world seems pretty bleak at times, but I know that my generation has the passion and the power to save the world.

This article is part of the XUNICEF News and Views Quarterly Newsletter, December 2021.

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