Internet Culture Has Changed Young Adulthood

Feb 20, 2008 - 10:11 AM PST

They say that any publicity is good publicity, a notion that I certainly subscribe to, even though on a couple of occasions a (bitter! clueless!) reviewer has torn one of my books a new one. So when I read negative press about a project I’m involved in, I don’t bother to serve up a rebuttal.

Until now.

Every reviewer is entitled to his or her personal opinion about a creative work, and the New York Times is no exception. But I have to take issue with a seemingly factual statement in today’s Quarterlife review, because it’s wrong. Here’s the offender: “Central to the mood of the series is the notion that the emergence of new media has made it harder to be young than it once was. The trouble with this premise is that it feels like an effort at a big idea conjured to suit the show’s format. Unless you find yourself working as an assistant to a junior buyer at Staples, while, let’s say, your college roommate is running Google out of Beijing, it is unclear how Internet culture has intervened in a profound way to alter the essential challenges of nascent adulthood... There is the vague sense on “Quarterlife” that blogging corrodes confidences, but gossip exchanged over watered-down keg beer in noisy bars has, since the beginning of time, managed to do the same thing.

First, it’s not at all a stretch to argue that blogging is not the same as water-cooler gossip, if only for the way it turns the private sphere public. I haven’t spent that much time working in the corporate world, but I’ve never heard of someone thumbtacking their journal to the office bulletin board. Plenty of other people have written about the blurring of the lines between the private and public spheres, and the way the Internet has actually served to disconnect a generation under the guise of connectivity, so I’ll leave those points there.

The more important issue is that it seems to me that the reviewer is taking this “big idea” extremely literally. The reviewer appears to equate Internet culture specifically to working at an Internet company (and, we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, to international telecommuting). But the Internet has tentacles that extend far beyond the computer screen.

New media has made it possible for more students to go to college (in between the years 2000 and 2005 alone, the number of students enrolling in college rose by 1.2 million), and not only because of electronic applications; online courses; communication with admissions offices, college staff and students; wider exposure to a broad variety of schools; and application assistance from cyberspace. A higher enrollment percentage is, of course, a good thing, but it has had two major ramifications for twentysomethings. The increasing numbers of college graduates has led to a greater, more pressured sense of competition among young adults, who feel like they have to work that much harder to distinguish themselves from their peers. This trend is partly what can lead twentysomethings (actually, I found that this stress often starts in high school) to feel like they have to choose a career track immediately, hit the hamster wheel as quickly as they can, and refrain from stepping off to catch their breath because then they’ll be left behind. It contributes to the feeling that I mentioned in my last blog, that if you haven’t done something monumental by the time you’re, say, 25, then you’re already over the hill. The Internet even makes it more likely that you’ll have heard of other people your age who have made a bigger name for themselves/ become more successful/ made more money than you.

What’s more, colleges are sitting pretty, knowing that they’re the prizes over which rising numbers of students are fighting. They have been raising their tuitions out of proportion with increases in cost of living, wages, the housing market, and other economic markers. As a result, student loan costs have shot through the roof. Lest a reviewer take that point literally, it is absolutely crucial to point out that student loan debt and skyrocketing tuition costs affect much more than the wallet of a twentysomething. This economic reality can play a part in every aspect of a young adult’s life. It is why the number of college grads moving back in with their parents now hovers at about 60%. It is why twentysomethings are marrying later, having kids later, and putting off buying a home – all traditional hallmarks, according to older generations, of adulthood. It can play a role in a twentysomething’s choice of career, geographic location, social life, and self esteem.

All of these items illustrate precisely how, in the reviewer’s words, “Internet culture has intervened in a profound way to alter the essential challenges of nascent adulthood.” Times have changed. And it is irrefutable that the Internet is a major reason why.

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