Cultivating ignorance: Ramesh Shrestha

Ignorance is bliss

The saying - ignorance is bliss - popular among many, emphasises that it is better for you not to know all the facts about a given situation so that you can enjoy a peaceful life - if you do not know something you do not need to worry about. Some level of ignorance may protect you from certain emotional stress but remaining wilfully ignorant on daily affairs which affects people's life and living could be a mistake. Wilful ignorance also means that one has a choice but one ignores not to know it. It goes against another significant popular saying - knowledge is power, which is essential to make appropriate judgement in a given context. But looking at our leaders it seems like an oxymoron in the sense that many decisions made by the leaders are based on influence and are not based on knowledge. This is the crux of our current crisis situation ranging from climate crisis to income inequality to geopolitics leading to wars and conflicts including genocide.

A big disservice

In recent decades, the social media networks, school curriculum, and the addictive mind-bending technology is slowly diverting the entire generation of young people away from the real world of humanism to an unknown destination. Their collective impact is resulting in breeding ignorance among the young generation. There is no objective media telling the truth on any local or global issues as most media houses are dedicated to serving the interest of the corporates and political entities. Various forms of social media reasonably compensate for this gap with news and views on local, regional and global issues deliberately ignored by the mainstream media but at the same time there are many unverifiable stories and messages aimed at unassuming children and youth that are harmful. Anyone with access to the internet can post anything audio, video and including podcasts to promote anything. Social media has become a double-edged sword.

The education system has evolved depending on the needs of the country specific economy and local contemporary issues but generally lacks focus on broader regional and global issues as a source of knowledge for growing children and youth. The emphasis in history education is limited to very inward-looking content; without knowledge on historical context many decisions made by these children and youth on social issues will remain hollow at best. The excessive focus on technology-based education is costing social, civic and behavioural education in the majority of educational institutions. Away from the class rooms, the technology is diverting young minds 24/7 on games and entertainment and is keeping children objectively blind.

The (anti)social media in collaboration with the mobile technology available in the hands of the young generation 24/7 is attacking the very nature of human intelligence. It is meddling in the trajectory of the normal cognitive development path of young minds. The software in these media tells them what to think and what is important from their perspectives based on expected profit. Such games and entertainments can have direct negative impacts on social, behavioural and cognition. One recent game that popped up on my mobile phone told me that this game is supposed to help increase IQ. (I played this game just out of curiosity and my score was 230; I will be happy with 90!) Imagine a child seeing such a score; it will land him on the moon.) Such games are on the borderline of criminality. Can the marketing of such software be regulated?

Concerns have been raised by psychologists and neuroscientists based on available data that social media is negatively impacting the attention span of children (performance on cognitive tasks), memory formation & recall and overall mental health. The Australian government's recent announcement to regulate the social media use by children under 16 years of age is welcome news but how it will be regulated is yet to be seen. Fourteen European countries are considering doing the same in 2025. It is likely that several groups may raise concerns about not restrictions on innovation, freedom of information, etc.

There are other contributing factors such as emphasis of education on democracy and human rights which are important but it has deliberately marginalised all existing social and traditional value systems. The combination of self-importance instilled in rights education and inward-looking history curriculum is making the younger generation unaware of the external world to relate to. The end result is that children and youth are becoming insular to the outside world and lack empathy & focus. How will the children who are in schools today see the world view when they become adults in the next 15 to 20 years? The youth of the next generation may be able to operate any mobile device with their eyes closed but it is not enough for them to survive the challenges they will face in coming decades such as negative impacts of climate change, income inequality, pandemics and fractured geopolitics to name a few. These are global challenges which do not distinguish who you are. Some of them may even be in positions of governance but with their shallow knowledge of the world beyond technology, how will they see and assess world affairs?

Early symptoms

A recent report based on a survey of managers of 1,000 European private companies reported that the managers are dissatisfied with the performance of recent graduates. The young employees feel 'entitled, do not fit in the world place, lack ethics, struggle with communication, don't handle feedback well, and are generally unprepared for the demands of the workforce.' The young employees also 'lack basic social skills and workplace etiquette'. Meanwhile they have unrealistic expectations about the workplace. About 25% of the young recruits are also reported to be unhappy at the workplace as they were not what they expected. These young recruits were born after 1997.

Dismantling ignorance

Above 105 words is just a summary of a much bigger problem. But it is not the fault of the young generation. We are failing them; we are making them ignorant. Children learn as they grow up. We are interrupting their learning curve, perhaps unintentionally. At the national level it is the responsibility of the governments as the custodian of the people to ensure that children grow up in safe ambiance but instead children are exposed to uncontrolled technological and chaotic social environments. The social media environment and the internet technology is jointly contributing in diverting children's attention away from the reality of the real world. The software industry that fuels the mobile devices with life like audiovisuals are taking them to unrealistic views of life and the world, which is further aggravated by the lack of relevant social, civic education in schools. The idea is not to make all children historians or a philosopher but they need to know our immediate past to understand human relations in social context for a cohesive society. Technology cannot give this education.

While the education system is adapting to the evolving technology it forgot about the social and humane aspect of education. Schools have become a techno social club. The eroding of discipline among the students is very visible. Teachers are no longer respected. Many of these behaviours are the visible impacts of social media and the games & entertainments available in mobile devices. In order to preserve the sanity of future generations, governments must make it mandatory for the social media houses to introduce strict regulations with some kind of restriction on all games and entertainments that would be uploaded in their platforms. The current restrictions in some social media houses imposed on age verification, harmful speech and languages are not working. The freedom of information and speech is good but it must remain within a moral boundary.