Every generation’s gripe

A generation grown up with no memory of life without Internet has the world on its fingertips

Pakistan has a generation gap problem. So does the world to be fair, but given the way our society is structured, the problem is a lot more ‘stark’ than most places. Over the last two decades, the world has grown exponentially more interconnected than it ever was. Information, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, is available more freely. For a generation that has grown up with no memory of life without the Internet, the world is on their fingertips.

Recent years have also seen huge strides in making the Internet more accessible to those who could not dream of using it. Lower costs for Internet services and content and platforms that are rather more impervious to the language barrier are changing the demographics of the online audience. In a country like Pakistan, it means there is a significant increase in the online user base from lower income classes. It also explains the charm of a platform like TikTok, which has a lower barrier to entry than most due to its particular features.

Let us talk about ‘immorality’. It is a problem as old as time. Not the ‘immorality’ itself, but the fact that every generation has found something wrong with the next: the ‘kids these days’. On the other side of the same problem is the fact that most of us, regardless of age and introspection, do little introspection on morality. For most, it is a thing unto itself that must be adhered to with little thought spared for why or why not.

That’s all well and good to some extent. It is a timeless struggle that generation after generation will inherit. We could go into the psycho-analytics of it, but we may digress too much. The real issue is when a vaguely understood or misunderstood concept of morality or lack of it harms a society in the long run.

Some may yet take issue with it, but the Peshawar High Court’s ban on TikTok, which it thankfully reversed, is one such instance. Our courts and some of our authorities, now and then, appear hell bent on policing the morality of our online generation — one wonders sometimes if it is prompted by trouble at home. In doing so, however, all they are accomplishing is chipping away at the little economic relevance we have in a world poised to enter a new industrial age.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2021.

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