Much has already been said about coming of age online. We’re witnessing firsthand the large-scale social experiment that is the internet and the implications of its benefits and drawbacks, particularly on those maturing alongside it.
There’s no shortage of moral panic around the assumption of different gender, mental health, non-human identities and labels young people hold, and they only increase as social media becomes more entrenched in our lives.
There seems to be a disconnect between generations, specifically between social and traditional media in the reconfiguration of the trends and movements shaping 21st century personhood.
Generations raised by the internet are navigating an entirely new reality. As such, we should act accordingly.
The high volume of young people who use social media platforms is shaping the narratives that inform a large sector of our pop culture and psychology. At the same time, social media continues to shape how young people develop.
Take, for example, the increase of therapy-speak and self-diagnosis. Social media and the widespread sharing of information online has been a great democratizing force. However, with equal access and opportunity to publish, not everyone sharing their perspective is necessarily qualified to do so.
Liza Meredith, a licensed psychologist and professor at the University of Minnesota, said one common pitfall young people experience online is their tendency to conflate and over-identify with complex identities, like mental health diagnoses.
“Young people are really prone to doing a lot of social comparisons,” Meredith said. “They may judge themselves and create an idea of themselves in relation to what they’re seeing online.”
All of this comes from a fairly universal human need to feel understood and, in some ways, validated.
We crave the ability to definitively know that others out there have commonalities with even some of our most niche or frowned-upon proclivities. We want to know there is a name and a reason for our experiences when not everything in life can be explained under a label or categorization. Even when effectively attributed, a label is not all-encompassing.
On the other hand, in a country where mental healthcare can be inaccessible and somewhat elusive, this line of thinking can open doors for legitimate intervention.
The internet is truly a double-edged sword. It’s a new dimension, one that has its own governing principles, languages and social norms.
It’s not that the internet is making young people more susceptible to certain stages of exploration. Instead, it’s making them more vulnerable to over-identifying and labeling those stages of exploration. Misattribution is the real danger here. It’s clear these people know how to identify their feelings.
Meredith said social media’s appeal, especially to young people, is, at least in part, rooted in its potential for enrichment and connection.
“I think young people use social media for a variety of reasons,” Meredith said. “Part of it might be entertainment, another part of it might be to connect with friends, and I think another reason is to explore themselves and their interests and their identity.”
While social media is a tool for enrichment and discovery, it doesn’t always explore the nuances that constitute or define specific identities, or explain why people choose them.
Social media is not making young people inherently different from previous generations. It introduced a completely different social and cultural environment for young people to contend with, where complex concepts and identities are often flattened in the process.
This brings us to Therians and furries.
While Therians are individuals who self-identify as animals, furries are individuals who exhibit an interest in anthropomorphized animals, often creating an original character or fursona to represent themselves in the larger worldbuilding project.
They identify traits in themselves that are similar to a specific animal, sometimes using this as a method to cope with feelings of alienation from other peers who don’t identify similarly.
There’s been a number of moral panics related to this. Older generations cry that young people no longer respect any form of legitimate identity, claiming more fluid ideologies led to utter madness, or even perversions.
It’s somehow less of a leap in logic to believe the ever-elusive smartphone is transforming children into cyborgian, cat people than it is to understand the simple fact that young people, and children in particular, are endlessly curious.
When deconstructed, though, it’s obvious these children just want to play.
The impulse to run around outside on all fours and meow, or pretend to be a cat, is something children are known to do. Older generations put labels on this behavior, whether it be for their comprehension, or the more general comprehension of the World Wide Web.
These identities aren’t invalid simply because they’ve been propagated online, or don’t necessarily fully translate in real life. They serve their purposes, which are to build community online. In addition, we should recognize that people grow and change, especially in developmental years. Labels or identifications that aren’t permanent are no less valuable or real.
Jodi Dworkin, a professor and extension specialist of family social science at the University, said the internet can be a space to explore and contend with ideas young people may not have access to or awareness of in their daily lives. Her research shows young people are very intentional in their internet usage.
“I think there’s lots of ways if young people don’t have space in their real lives to explore different things,” Dworkin said. “The internet and social media can provide really important avenues to help dedication to do that.”
We’re getting it all wrong, from all sides of the debate.
When we approach this delicate subject matter with empathy, it becomes abundantly clear that we need to give these young people, and ourselves, a grace period.
Generations Z and Alpha are maturing while social media is in its infancy and have unwittingly been made into test-subjects.