New Generation (A)social Media

                             

Arzu was complaining to her friend again:

-Zehra, when my husband calls in the evening and says “There is a business dinner, I need to get this client or forget about going to the Maldives this summer, my dear”, even though the man is trying to keep my standards high, bad things come to my mind, I can’t stop. I emptied the kitchen drawers to distract myself. I said “I will clean the shelves, organize them and put them back, so that I won’t think about it… My mind goes to him again... I can’t control my thoughts…

-Is his client a woman, I wonder?

-Is she beautiful?

-Will she set her eyes on my man?

-Ahhh my salt shaker, sugar cup, tea jar… I bought all of you from Eminönü and carried you on the ferries in my arms and brought you home, will other womenuse you now? Oh God, how could such a thing ever happen?! If he cheats on me, I will definitely take these with me when I leave… Oh look at what I am thinking, look at the absurdity! My husband is gone and I am worried about a sugar cup.

- Zehra, how can I stop my brain? How can I stop my thoughts? Please say something...

- Arzu, physican, heal thyself. Every time my son goes out with his friends, I imagine him smoking or drinking alcohol, my mind goes crazy. I always think about what he is doing or where he is going. I can’t sit still, I call the poor kid a hundred times. He only goes to the movies. The only posion that enteres his body is the trans fat from the popcorn. But I can’t control myself, I see the children on the street, I see on the news where children run away from home, some commit suicide... I say “My child is definitely going to end up like this” You know what? Let’s stop watching daytime TV, if we continue like this, we’ll turn the entire apartment into a mental hospita, I’ll tell you that...

Isn't it strange that no one can control their thoughts?... It's as if we can't control the sentences that flow in our minds, they come running to us at our best times to disturb our peace. They flow into our minds as if to say, "Hello from the world of crazy thoughts! We came to screw with your brain, don’t worry we won’t stay long!” Now, let's look at ourselves, for example, what was the last thing we thought about?

 

Buying that bag we liked or going on that trip we really wanted? Or are we thinking about our spouse, child or mother whom we called a while ago but couldn’t reach? Have we ever thought about who we could make happy? Have we ever thought about anyone other than ourselves? Don’t we always think from our own perspective even when we think about others? Aren’t we only interested in the parts that concern at us?

It’s true that a person can’t manage their thoughts as they pass through their mind. We can’t put a stopper in our minds and say, “No, I won’t think from now on, don’t pass by here, my friend, the road is closed.” Yes. In fact, the more we try not to think, the more our minds get stuck there. But in fact, our brains produce thoughts according to what we perceive. In other words, when I change my interests, what I see and hear in total, the direction of the thoughts passing through my mind also begins to change.

When we constantly follow women with wonderful homes on Instagram, we think, “What should I buy for our living room?” When we constantly watch morning crime shows, we think, "I'm going to the market, but will someone attack me, kidnap me, or stab me?"

When we start studying medicine, we think, “How strange are hormones, how can they control everything? How can a hormone control everything?” When we start working as an apprentice of a carpenter, we think, “I wonder which tree would make the most durable chair?” As an apprentice, we cannot prevent this thought from coming to our mind at that moment, but what makes us think about trees is what we see, hear, in other words, what we perceive…

At this exact point, we get bothered when somebody says that “the new generation is so thoughtless.” One would wonder why are they so thoughtless? Why don’t it come to their minds to move aside on the elevator to make space for other people. Why don’t they think to call their relatives? Why can’t they understand that their mothers are also human and are not servers?

Because, there is something in their lives that no other teenager has ever had in their lives before. (A)social Media… Their perceptions are so different from what their mothers and fathers perceive, and naturally their thoughts are completely different. People who cannot think of similar things inevitably split ways. “What am I going to talk with somebody whom I have no common interest with? Especially when there are millions of other people I can talk to about similar things, just a click away…” They don’t have to say it, they show it...

In the past, not even a teenager, just a child would understand that their mother was upset and act accordingly. Because there was nothing else they could perceive. Their whole world was their mother, father, siblings if they had any, and school… Now, even when sitting next to us our kids burry themselvesinto their phones. Even when they are with us, they don’t perceive us, how can they think about us? When they have never seen anybody call their relative how can we expect them to call theirs? They hate visiting their relatives because they have Internet and websites to roam at home which are much more enjoyable than drinking tea at their uncle’s...

Is it annoying? Yes. Should they pull themselves together? Definitely...

But we also have our share… This is not just their wrong doing. They were born into this system. They think the world is like this. They actually react normally according to the world they perceive. For example, cryptocurrency does not scare them. They are so used to pouring money into virtual and unreal things… This is their normal.

If we do not add reality to their lives, someone else will fill every place we cannot fill with reality with virtuality. In other words, one of the reasons for the virtuality that fills their lives is that we cannot add its opposite, reality, to their lives.

With the hope of raising children who enjoy their working, whose lives are full of reality, whose thoughts are directed in the right direction, and being able to manage our questions…