Hicham El Ouahabi | We were the lab animals testing online life
Columnist Hicham El Ouahabi grew up in a world that was still predominantly offline. That had consequences. “That our developmental years took place in a world that was changing at lightning speed had one major drawback: the manual for life, handed down through home and school, was completely outdated.”
It happened somewhere between the last bite of oliebollen and the popping of the champagne cork. With about a quarter of a century on the clock, it suddenly dawned on me. We, born between 1997 and 2004, have led lives that can be called bizarre, to say the least. As children, we grew up in a world that was still predominantly offline. You ran across the street looking for that one friend, woke up without notifications and fell asleep with your own thoughts. Our world was tangible, imperfect, but it was ours.
And then came the turnaround. Just as we were starting to understand who we were as adolescents, we suddenly had to figure out who we wanted to be online, too. The first selfies, the first likes, the first panic over that one message that just didn't get answered. Our developmental years marked the transition between two eras. While we were still practicing how to address someone for a date, we became experts at swiping. While we were learning how to have a real conversation, we got caught up in endless chat sessions. We were the last to know offline life and the first to struggle through the online jungle. Thus we became the architects and lab animals of a completely new social order.
That our developing years took place in a world that was changing at lightning speed had one major drawback: the manual for life, handed down through home and school, was completely outdated. But that didn’t matter, because with wifi and a smartphone, we had everything. At least, that’s what we thought. Meanwhile, precisely everything that was really important was literally slipping through our fingers unnoticed. Silence. Boredom. Autencity. All sacrificed for convenience, speed and the appearance of perfection.
And now, with a quarter century behind me, a feeling overwhelms me that I never saw coming: an almost boomer-like urge to exclaim that everything used to be better. But it isn’t. It’s not nostalgia. It’s anger. Everything we were once promised - connection, freedom, accessibility - we have single-handedly undone. Just look at us now: caught in a web of likes, notifications and algorithms, attached to a golden chain that drags us toward the screen as soon as it vibrates. The tech giants have crowned themselves modern masters. What about us? We have become their willing slaves. We wear the chains willingly.
That seems to me to be the tentative conclusion we can draw at this time. And we can rightly, I think, consider that a bizarre life. The reassuring thing is that, as guinea pigs, we don't necessarily have to go on like this. This 25th year of the 21st century is the perfect time to do things differently. So cheers, to the loss of what we were and to the search for what we can still become!
